Baby’s name, The
This song reflects racist, misogynist and colonial ideas that were commonplace at the time but are no longer acceptable today.
AKA | The Boer War song The War, War, the blooming war |
First Published | 1900 |
Writer/composer | CW Murphy and Albert Hall | Roud | RN21229 |
Music Hall Performers | Charles Bignell |
Folk performances | Collected from the singing of: Pennock, Billy; England : Yorkshire; 1962 Forbes, Annie; Scotland : Caithness; 1968 Nesling, Harkie; England : Suffolk; 1971 Hall, Mabs; England: Suffolk; 1989 Hall, Gordon; England: Sussex; 1989 |
The War, the War, the blooming war, has turned my wife insane From Kruger to Majuba she's the Transvaal on the brain And when to christen our first child, last Sunday week we tried The parson said, 'What's this child's name?' and my old girl replied, The baby's name is Kitchener, Carington, Methuen, Kekewich, White Cronje, Plummer, Powell, Majuba, Gatacre, Warren, Colenso, Kruger Capetown, Mafeking, French, Kimberley, Ladysmith, 'bobs' Union Jack and Fighting Mac, Lyddite, Pretoria, Blobbs.' The parson said, 'Such names I can't upon this infant pop.' But my wife broke his rolling veldt and smashed his Spion Cop She jumped upon his Kroonstad, and she never made a miss Said she, 'I'll burst your armoured train, if you don't think of this, She tore the parson's flag of truce, then burst his Jacobsdal She pushed his Modder River right into his shrapnel shell She kicked his mounted infantry, till his Bloemfontein was sore Then she did a flanking movement, and she shouted out once more,
A song made famous in the halls by Charles Bignell, mocking the strange sounding names that filled the news as a result of the Boer War. Perhaps it’s also mocking some of the patriotic songs that featured heavily in the halls at that time.
Its an example of a tongue twister song, and I suspect one of the reasons it was remembered by several traditional singers in the later 20th century is that it was so hard to learn in the first place that once it was committed to memory it stayed there!
The entry at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library has links to several recordings.
Charles Bignell ( 1866-1935) biography will appear here (def died after 33)
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000957/19380806/055/0005
Cosmotheka sing it:
Sources:
- Entries in the Roud Indexes at the Vaughn Williams Memorial Library: https://archives.vwml.org/search/all:single[folksong-broadside-books]/0_50/all/score_desc/extended-roudNo_tr%3A21229
- Kilgarrif Sing Us
- Lyrics: monologues.co.uk
- Mudcat thread
- Sheet Music: