Monday, May 23, 2005

A green old water fool

In a memoir an author speaks of singing old songs, and mentions two: "The Bulldog on the Bank" and "Three Jolly Fishermen." The first was a great favorite of ours, and we used to beg the grown-up men to sing it over and over again, each time in a lower register:
Oh, the bulldog on the bank
And the bullfrog in the pool.
The bulldog called the bullfrog
A green old water fool.
It has taken days to come up with the other one. First came the beginning of the tune, then the principle of the refain, then the name of the city, then the names of the fishermen, and only at last the verse that's the point of the whole thing. How could this song have been forgotten and why did it take so long to recall it? Now that all has been confirmed via the Web, we've resolved to check the accuracy of other recollections of lyrics this way in the future.

5 Comments:

At 10:37 PM, June 08, 2008, Blogger Unknown said...

I have a copy of the complete song-"The Bull Dog on the Bank". There are 3 verses to this old song.The second verse says "Oh!the bulldog stooped to catch him,And the snapper caught his paw; The pollywog died alaughing, To see him wag his jaw." The third verse says "Says the monkey to the owl; "Oh! what'll you have to drink?" "Why since you are so very kind,I'll take a bottle of ink."
Davide

 
At 10:29 PM, October 11, 2009, Blogger kjwill5165 said...

There are 7 verses. The last verse goes like this:
Pharaoh's daughter on the bank, little Moses in the pool
Pharaoh's daughter on the bank, little Moses in the pool
Pharaoh's daughter on the bank, little Moses in the pool
She fished him out with a telegraph pole and sent him off to school
Does anyone have a recording of this? My father in-law use to sing this song and I'd like to teach the grandkids.
I have the sheet music, but I don't play a piano.

 
At 8:03 AM, June 25, 2018, Blogger gowin said...

What are the 7 verses. We sang the first and last verse only as kids.

 
At 12:17 PM, October 01, 2019, Blogger Unknown said...

I would love to have all 7 verses of this song . Brings back a lot if memories.

 
At 4:26 AM, July 24, 2020, Blogger Unknown said...

Brought back memories of singing class at Primary School in the 70s.Used to love to sing this song as I pranced about !

 

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