Dash my vig

AKA Dash my wig
I’ll go to London no more
First Published 1818
Writer/composer Thomas Hudson Roud RN23464

Music Hall Performers Thomas Hudson
Folk performances Collected from the singing of:
Bowker, Mrs; England: Lancashire; 1909		 

Thomas Hudson's Comic Songs (vol 1) p9, 1818

Adoo and farewell to this wile smoky town,
Vere not nothing but rioting never goes down;
In a little small cottage, that's not wery big,
I'll live all the rest of my life—Dash my vig!

Tol de rol, &c

I fell deep in love with a ravishing maid,
And she was a straw bonnet builder by trade ;
Her name it was Mary Ann Dorothy Twig,
But she used me shamefully bad — Dash my vig!
                                                          
At half-arter-eight every night I did meet her,
And then at half-price to the play I did treat her;
Sometimes, too, ve vent quite full drest to a jig,
And valtz'd till the morning ve did — Dash my vig!
                                                         
I ax'd her to marry — she scornfully said,
She wondered how such a thought com'd in my head ;
For a journeyman-grocer she loved — Mr. Figg,
And he was the man she should ved — Dash my vig!
                                                          
She married the grocer, and soon I could see,
She cock'd up her nose half a yard above me;
And her husband himself behaved just like a pig,
For he told me to valk myself off — Dash my vig!
                                                          
I'd a good mind to challenge him, pistols I'd got,
But I did not at all like the thoughts of a shot;
I couldn't say nothing my heart was so big,
So I syth'd and I then valk'd avay — Dash my vig !
                                                         
Your poets and authors they say love is blind,
And 'tis true, sure and certain, and that I did find,
Or it never could be she could choose such a prig,
Instead of a young man like me — Dash my vig!
                                                          
Adoo and farewell, I retires to the glades
Of forests and woods, and their sweet wernal shades ;
Where in my own garden I'll plant, and I'll dig,
And I vont come to Lunnon no more — Dash my vig!
                                                        

A comic song written by Thomas Hudson and performed by him in the 1820s/30s in the singing rooms of taverns and supper clubs that developed into London’s Music Halls. The exchange of w’s for v’s (vig = wig) and vice versa (wile = vile) in this period was often used to signify a performance which drew on comedic stereotypes of costermongers – London’s barrow traders.

Maurice Wilson Disher, in his book on Victorian song describes how “Dash my Vig” became an overused catchphrase, whilst also using the song to illustrate what he sees as a change in the subject of songs at this time:

In the eighteenth century it was the sailor who found that his sweetheart had married a tailor or a barber, and he had our sympathy; in the nineteenth it happened to tradesmen, and their
complaints invited derision. Imitations of “Dash my vig!” multiplied until its joke dominated all the fun enjoyed at tavern concerts, but when Hudson was singing there in the 1820s to be jilted was only one of many comic misfortunes.

Victorian Song,p125

“Dash my vig!” and “Dash my buttons!” were both used as a polite jokey alternative to swearing in the early 19th century, I’ve yet to establish whether their use proceeded the song…

The song Dash my Vig! was fairly widely published on broadsides in England and Scotland in the middle years of the 19th century and is usually reported as being sung to the tune Derry Down. It was collected by Anne G Gilchrist from the singing of Mrs Bowker of Lancashire in 1909 – she remembered it from the singing of her grandfather. It does not seem to be widely sung by more recent traditional singers.

Sources:

  • VWML entry
  • Lyrics: Thomas Hudson’s Comic Songs (vol 1) p9, 1818
  • Maurice Willson Disher: Victorian song