Everybody works but father

From monologues.co.uk
 
Every morning at six o'clock I go to my work
Overcoat buttoned up round my neck no job would I shirk
Winter wind blows 'round my head cutting up my face
I tell you what I'd like to have my dear old Father's place

Everybody works but Father and he sits around all day
Feet in front of the fire, smoking his pipe of clay
Mother takes in washing, so does Sister Ann
Everybody works at our house but my old man

A man named Work moved into Town, and Father heard the news
With Work so near my Father started shaking in his shoes
When Mr Work walked by my house, he saw with great surprise
My Father sitting in his chair with blinders on his eyes

At beating carpets Father said he simply was immense
We took the parlour carpet out and hung it on the fence
Mother said, 'Now beat it dear, with all you're might and main'
And Father beat it right back to the fire-side again

A song which started in the British Halls, later re-written for American audiences and reimported to the UK. Collected from one English traditional singer but having a significant impact on American traditional singing.

There is a great deal of information about this song, some of it contradictory! Its been credited to a number of writers, but this is my best attempt to unpack what is known – if you are interested in the details, you should be aware that I think that the information in Spaeth’s books is a little misleading.

In the early 1890s We all go to work but father was a popular British Music Hall song performed both by JC Heffron and its writer Leslie Reed. In around 1905 simplified versions of the song became very popular in America. The most successful of these was associated with Lew Dockstader, an American blackface performer and a minstrel-company owner. Jean Havez (1874- 1925) , Dockstader’s theatrical agent and vaudeville songwriter, rewrote the British Music Hall song for an American audience. It was later sung by many different entertainers including Groucho Marx and Fiddlin’ John Carson!

A slightly different reworking for the US audience, which did not prove as popular, was produced by Charles W McClintock and Samuel Lehman. Both the Dockstader and McClintock versions were published in 1905, so it’s not possible with the information I have to say who was there first! (Spaeth incorrectly seems to credit McClintock with writing the British version, and this has been repeated in several later sources).

As was the case with many successful songs in the US, the simplified song re-crossed the Atlantic and became popular in British Music Halls, where it was particularly associated with the singing both of Maidie Scott and Arthur Collins.

Madie (Maidie) Scott also sang Father’s got a job 13703