The Old Man- Chapman (MO) 1914 Belden A
[No title was supplied, I've created one. From: Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Song Society; edited Belden, 1940. His notes follow. Cf. A Sailor Man Came Home- Lockley (CA) 1923 Gordon.
R. Matteson 2013]
Our Goodman (Child 274)
For the range of this piece of folk humor see Child's headnote. He seems to have thought that the Gaelic, Flemish, and German forms of it were derived from the English, and the Scandinavian and Magyar from the German. Gaston Paris (Origines de la Podsie lyrique en France 34) uses the French form of it in his argument for the origin of folk-song from the May-day rites of the
middle ages. There are in English two forms of it, represented respectively by Child's A (which happens to be Scotch, but is the type followed by most regent texts in both Great Britain and America) and B (a London broadside, in which the woman has three lovers in the house at once, as is the case also in Williams's Berkshire text and in one of the Virginia copies). It continues to hold the interest of folk singers, and can be heard on the phonograph and the radio.
It has been reported since Child's time from Aberdeenshire (LL 214-6) and Berkshire (FSUT 188-90), from the Bahamas (MAFLS XIII 162-3) and Nova Scotia (BSSNS 62-3), and in the United States from Maine (BBM 315-7), Massachusetts (JAFL XVIII 294-5), Virginia (TBV 485-94, SCSII 234-6), West Virginia (FSS 154-8), Kentucky (SharpK I 269-70), Tennessee (FSSH
121-3, SFLQ II 76-7), North Carolina (JAFL XXX 199, SSSA 14-6, SharpK I267-9, BMFSB l4-5, FSSH 119-21, 123-4, SCSM 232-6), South Carolina (SCB 159-61), Mississippi (FSM 122-3, SCSII 236), the Ozarks (OMF 225-7), Ohio (JAFL XXXV 348, text not given), Michigan (KNR 301), Iowa (MAFLS XXIX 13-4), and Kansas (JAFL XXIX 166, from Scotland).
A. [The Old Man] No title given. Sent to me in 1914 by H. A. Chapman, student at the School of Mines at Rolla, with the remark that 'there are some twenty verses of it, each one "rottener" than the one before. It is often sung by the older generation of miners.'
The old man came home last night
As drunk as he could be,
And on the rack he found a hat
Where his hat ought to be.
'My dear wife, my loving wife,
My darling wife,' says he,
'What is this thing upon the rack
Where my hat ought to be?'
'You old fool, you damn fool,
You son of a bitch,' says she,
'Can't you plainly see
That's only a frying pan
That mother sent to me?'
'I've traveled by land and sea
A thousand miles or more,
But never did I see a frying pan
With lining in it before.'
The old man came home last night
As drunk as he could. be,
And in the bed he found a head
Where his head ought to be.
'My dear wife, my loving wife,
My darling wife,' says he,
'What means this head within the bed
Where my head ought to be?'
'You old fool, you damn fool,
You son of a bitch,' says she,
'Can't you plainly see
That's only a cabbage head
That mother sent to me?'
'I've traveled o'er land and sea
A thousand miles or more,
But never did I see a cabbage head
With hair on it before.'