Man without a woman, A

AKA Silver Dollar
If you roll a silver dollar
First Published 1901
Writer/composer EW Rogers Roud RN11405 and 19994

Music Hall Performers Arthur Lennard
Folk performances Collected from the singing of:
Davis, WA; Alabama, Aliceville; 1952
Robertson, Stanley; Scotland : Aberdeenshire; 2004
Modern performances
Petula Clark, Bobby Darin, Dusty Springfield.		 

McGlennon's Song Annual 1902
Written and composed by EW Rogers. Sung by Arthur Lennard.
Music at Francis Day and Hunters.

What is man without woman, pray tell me?
Just a sort of two-legged mistake.
He has no one to care for him, or pull his hair for him —
No one his wages to take.
He's a sort of a rind without bacon; 
Or a hat that is minus a head.
Can't insure his own life, for if he has no wife,
There is no one to wish he was dead.
The worst wretch from Beersheba to Dan 
Is a woe-begone womanless man.

Man without a woman is a ship without a sail,
A boat without a rudder, or a fish without a tail
Man without a woman is a wretch beneath a ban.
There's only one thing worse on earth-
That's a woman without a man.

Stern and grave is the bachelor lonely,
Till a ladybird gives him a wink; 
Then he starts in to flirt about — follows a skirt about —
Takes to hair-dye and to drink.
He buys songs about love, doves and moonlight,
Which he sings with a gurgle and catch;
Till the neighbours all say, "Poor old Snooks, by the way,
Seems to have a soft place in his thatch."
Live without her he don't think he can;
And he scoffs at the poor single man.

Man was made by himself at the onset, 
And the world seemed so calm and serene.
Parrots did all the clattering, there was no chattering,
Till woman came on the scene.
She arrived with the first bit of scandal,
And to tell it my heart truly grieves; 
Said to Adam, "I'm sure that the lady next door
Wears a costume of last season's leaves," 
How she found it out, say if you can;
That would never occur to a man
 
See a man when he's just newly married  -
All he does is to go to his work; 
When he comes home his food won't cook,while his wife reads a book;
Thinks she should do it - the Turk!
Thinks his wife ought to darn socks and such-like,
And keep house very tidy and neat. 
When he's hungry for tea, won't have kisses — not he!
Says he'd rather have something to eat.
Then she cries — to give in is his plan. 
Trust a woman to manage a man.

Single men turn their noses up at babies
Make them always the subject of jests. 
But when wed, all his "bouncers" are how many flounces are
Sewn on the twins' undervests.
Then in safety pins be becomes learned;
Also ribbons and tapes, coarse and fine.
When his friends' babies shout, he a bottle pulls out;
Says, "Lime-water I that's what I give mine."
Know these wonderful things no one can, 
Until a woman first coaches a man.

A song reflecting sexist attitudes pretty routine in the Halls at the turn of the century – written and composed by EW Rogers and most famously sung by comedian Arthur Lennard. The chorus of the song seems to have lived on as a popular song in what I assume were the all-male environments of American colleges and military camps in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. At some point in the mid-20th century it was incorporated into what might be considered a completely different song, Silver Dollar, which was a big hit throughout the English speaking world in the 1950s.

The theme of the chorus is reminiscent of the popular slogan coined by Australian feminist Irina Dunn in the late 1960s: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” and it’s tempting to think that Dunn was responding in some way to the ghost of the old music hall song.

Having said that, this type of witticism did not originate in the Halls, and humorous sayings of this type go back at least to the mid 19th century – here are three early examples:

  • A man without a woman is like …

    • an oyster without a shell (Poughkeepsie Casket 1841)
    • a ship without a helm (Cheltenham Journal, 1855)
    • a pistol without a hammer. (Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, 1862)

The earliest is from 1841 but I would be surprised if sayings of this type didn’t go back further. As far as I can tell EW Rogers was the first to put expressions of this type in a song (but let me know if you know different!).

The Era – Saturday 20 July 1901

Billy Murray recorded Rogers’s song in 1907, though it was wrongly attributed to a different composer/writer: Alfred Williams. The recording appears to be out of copyright so it’s reproduced for you here:

Billy Murray sings A man without a woman from Archive.com

The song appears to have been successful on both sides of the Atlantic and variations appear in American college songsters in the 1920s and 30s.

At some point, probably during the 1930s a variation on the chorus of EW Rogers’ song seems to have been combined with different verses in a song often called Silver Dollar, it appears in several collections of World War 2 military songs published in 1945 and later in military and college collections of the 1950s and 60s. It was published as sheet music in 1939, credited to Jack Palmer and Clarke Van Ness, though I suspect they were committing to paper a pre-existing song… The Silver Dollar version was a 1950s pop hit in the UK , Australia and USA for various artists including Petula Clark, Bobby Darin and others – in the UK Eve Young & The Homesteaders were number 1 in the unofficial sheet music sales chart for 7 weeks in Sept/Oct 1950:

A man without a woman (Silver Dollar)
By Jack Palmer and Clarke Van Ness.
Featured and broadcast by Petula Clark. 
Recorded by Eve Young on London Records

You can throw a silver dollar down upon the ground,
And it will roll, because it's round.
A woman never knows what a good man she's got,
Until she turns him down,

So listen, my honey, listen to me
I want you to understand
That as a silver dollar goes from hand to hand
A woman goes from man to man,
A woman goes from man to man.

A man without a woman is like a ship without a sail,
A boat without a rudder or a fish without a tail,
A man without a woman is like a wreck upon the sand,
There's only one thing worse in the universe
That's a woman without a man.
A woman without a man.

I have seen it suggested that this was used in a radio or TV advertising jingle for pancakes but I have been unable to confirm this….

A variation of the chorus was collected from the singing of Mr WA Davies in Alabama in 1952 – he sang:

A man without a woman is like an arm without a hand, 
Like a boat without a rudder, like a fish without a tail. 
A man without a woman is like a ship without a sail. 
But the saddest thing in this old world to me 
Is a woman without a man

Mr Davies explained that he had learned the song in college, though we can’t be sure whether its was before or after the link with Silver Dollar verses.

The great storyteller and traditional singer from the Scottish Traveller community, Stanley Robertson recorded the Silver Dollar version of the song as If you roll a silver dollar on his album Rum Scum Scoosh.

A version from 1950 by The Five Smith Brothers:

Sources: