{"id":23684,"date":"2024-03-13T10:22:22","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T10:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=23684"},"modified":"2024-03-13T14:47:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T14:47:15","slug":"phew-them-golden-kippers-dont-they-tidly-wink","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/phew-them-golden-kippers-dont-they-tidly-wink\/","title":{"rendered":"Phew! Them golden kippers! Don’t they tid’ly wink"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>Dem Golden Kippers<\/td><\/tr>
First Published<\/td>1891<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Writer\/composer<\/td>Charles Osborne<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN5381<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Music Hall Performers<\/strong><\/td>George Beauchamp<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Collected from the singing of:<\/strong>
Brooks, Ern ; England : Manchester ; 1957*
Bate, Charlie ; England : Cornwall : 1950-69
Pitman, Charlie ; England : Cornwall : no date
Jones, Frank ; England : Birmingham 1984
Modern performances<\/strong>
Ewan MacColl; Proper English

*see below<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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[From Sheet Music held at the Bodleian Library]\n\nGOLDEN KIPPERS\n(PARODY)\nWritten by CHARLES OSBORNE\n\nAs I was returning from a friendly call,\nI saw some kippers on a coster's stall.\nSo I ask'd the price of the merchant there..\nAnd he says \"Gov'nor, a penny a pair.\" \nSo tied up a couple with a piece of rope,\nI paid the penny and prepar'd to slope.\nSays he, \"Don't carry 'em but leave them alone,\nLike Little Bo Peep's sheep they'll walk home.\n\nOh, them golden kippers! Oh, them golden kippers!\nEvery nose straight up it goes and everybody shouted murder!\nOh, them golden kippers! Phew, them golden kippers,\nI've had to throw those golden kippers in the golden street\n<\/em>[twice]\n\nAs I walked along, a manure cart stopped\nTo see if anything by chance had dropped,\nAnd a policeman muttered, who was standing near, \n\"There's something wrong with the gas down here.\" \nThen a soldier halted, and saluted me,\nSaid I, \"what's wrong?\" \"all right,\" said he,, \nTo superior rank I've always knelt,\nAnd they're the rankest I ever smelt.\"\t\n\nWell at last those kippers to the door I led,\nOur tom-cat smelt 'em, and he fell down dead,\nAnd my wife said, \"Charlie, this will be my death; \nYou are drunk again \u2014 I smell your breath.\"\nSaid the sanitary man, \"I'm just in time\nWith Condy's fluid and chloride of lime,\nBut the cattle plague, I'm afraid, remains,\nSo I'll send some men to attend to the drains \n\nFor three months afterwards the doctor came, \nAnd the plumbers tinkered at the same old game, \nAnd what with the snow and the rain, oh Lor'\nWell, I was laid up six months more.\nAnd when I reckoned all the exe's through.\nWhat with the plumber and the doctor, too. \nBefore I managed of the lot to be rid,\nThem kippers cost me fifty quid<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A hit in 1891 for  George Beauchamp<\/a>, written by the self-styled Parody King<\/em>, Charles Osborne<\/a> and widely sung in pantomimes in the 1892\/93 season. It was a parody of the James Bland<\/a>‘s black -face minstrel song Dem Golden Slippers<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By October 1892 the critic at The Era <\/em>seems to have tired of the song, though the audience still seemed to enjoy it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Mr George Beauchamp has returned to the Holborn establishment, and still relies on his parody  Oh, Those Golden Kippers <\/em>as the principal item in his turn, and from the reception given to the song on Tuesday evening it would seem that its popularity is not yet outworn. <\/p>\n The London Music Halls: The Royal, The Era<\/a> – 08 Oct 1892<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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Like many black-face minstrel songs, the original Dem Golden Slippers<\/em> played on racial stereotypes to supposedly humorous effect – it was itself a parody of a spiritual popularised by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers in the 1870s: Golden Slippers<\/em>. There is a recording and information about Bland’s parody at the Library of Congress. <\/a> A later (1909) recording of the spiritual  by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers can be found in the Discography of American Historical Recording.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Music Hall parody, Golden Kippers<\/em> featured in the repertoire of several traditional singers in England and Ewan MacColl sang it as part of the performance Street Songs, Election Ditties, The Police, Prisons, Enemies, Jeers and Snobs<\/em> on his and Brendan Behan’s Topic LP Singing Streets.<\/em> In the sleeve notes MacColl explains that the song was “learned in 1957 from Ern Brooks a 47 year-old artist<\/em> who grew up in the Miles Platting district of Manchester”<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ewan MacColl sings a snatch of the song:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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