Songs/poems our Mothers sang

feetlebaum - just looked at your Skylark post - there is a wonderful recording of this by Peter Skellern which I just love.

eGJ I have heard various versions of that particular ditty. Some are more or less decent than others.

Inthefields,I think it was Val Doonican who recorded Scarlet Ribbons.

Scooter I think it was Harry Belafonte.

My first memories of nursey rhymes and songs where of my grandpa singing:
Sweet Katy Connor
I don't suponner ?
Oh Kate
As sure as fate
You'll have to marry me
I've got a notion
Of jumping in the Ocean
And courting all the mermaids at the bottom of the sea.

The other one he sang when he took me out and we travelled home by bus was :
Why does everybody call me big-head ?
but I can't remember the rhyme or song I just know mum was very cross when I used to sing it when Grandpa was not around.

'Bighead' was Max Bygraves's song...

Someone shouted 'Bighead!' at him during a show, and he ad libbed 'I could put it in your mouth and it would still rattle!' - it went to well that he had a stooge shout 'Bighead' ever after that!

Ella46. Think we are both right. Harry and Val seem to have recorded Scarlet Ribbond

Mairezydotes and dozeydotes and
liddlelambsydivey, kiddleydiveytoo
wouldn't you?

repeat....

If the words sound queer and funny
to you ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,
Sint:

Mares eat oats and lambs eat oats
and little lambs eat ivy!

Mairezydotes etc................

Ella46. Think we are both right. Harry Belafonte and Val Doonican both recorded Scarlet Ribbons,Val Doonicans version is the one I remember.

Feetlebaum thanks for the info on Max Bygraves and Bighead song.

What a lot of us come back to Mareseedoats and Doeseedoats and can quote it all! There must be many pre-war and war babies on here.

Toothbrush song, nellie the elephant, Mud mum glorious mud!!!

I know all the words Elegran and I was born in 1946, but my mother used to sing it all the time.

My Granny used to recite Old Meg she was a Gypsy and do you remember the words I know it went Old Meg she was a gypsy ,she lived upon the moor.That is all I can remember at the moment

My grandmother used to sing a song with the words (only partly remembered):

'Come out dear Dolly and make a snowman
Ha Ha Ever so fat
(da dee dee da dee dee da dee dee da)
Ha Ha Father a hat'.

This does look odd now, but I so clearly remember her singing this, and the tune and I would love to know what the missing line was. Is this familiar to anyone?

A lovely thread to read.
My mum and dad took turns singing to us at bedtime. Dad sang lullabies such as 'Turra Lurra Lurra' His favourite radio programme was 'Sing Something Simple' and he would love to join in, singing his own words if he didn't remember them.
Mum was a beautiful singer and sang at weddings. A bedtime song she sang began 'A fairy sat deep in the heart of a rose, And a tear trickled over the tip of her nose' I loved that song and sang it to my own children and now to my grandchildren. I have never ever heard it anywhere else.
The requests I get when my grandchildren sleep over are: 'The Fairy Song' 'Oh You are a mucky Kid (Liverpool Lullaby) 'Two Little Boys' 'Morningtown Ride' and 'Two Little Boys.'

My mum always sang 'The little boy that Santa Claus Forgot' every Christmas and it used to make me cry.

My Mum had a lovely voice and used to sing in Social clubs. I hated Sundays though because my Mum & Dad always had Sing Something Simple on the radio.

I can't sing at all - my DC used to ask me to stop if I sang to them
I'd love to be able to sing in tune - it's a wonderful talent to have and I'm very envious of all of you who can do it!

maxgran - I always fancied doing a bebop version, and calling it Sing Something Complicated...

Many of the above, plus The Ogo Pogo song.

One fine day in Hindustan, I met a funny little man. With googly eyes and lantern jaws, (alternative: His coat was short and his tail was long), a new silk hat and some old plus-fours (alt: a hairy paw)
When I said to that quaint old chap "Why do you carry that big steel trap, that butterfly net and that rusty gun?" He replied "Listen here my son:

I'm looking for the ogo-pogo
that funny little ogopogo.
His mother was an earwig, his father was a whale, and I want to put a little salt on his tail.
I want to find the ogopogo while he's playing on his old banjo.
For the Lord Mayor of London, the Lord Mayor of London, wants to put him in the Lord Mayor's show.

(Up)On his banjo night and day, the ogopogo likes to play.
He charms the snakes and chimpanzees, the big baboons and the bumblebees. Lions and tigers begin to roar "Play that melody just once more.
Do (alt: did) I hear the sound of an old banjo?
Pardon me I shall have to go, (for)

I'm looking for the ogo pogo, that funny little ogo-pogo. His mother was an earwig his father was a whale,
and I want to put a little salt on his tail,
for the Lord Mayor of London wants to put him in the Lord Mayor's show.

My grandmother was a huge fan of music hall shows, and so my mother was brought up knowing all the songs and words, much to my father's disgust. So when she heard him coming home, she would swiftly change from a rentition of The raggle-taggle gypsies' or whatever to 'Golden Slumbers kiss your eyes'.

I sang them all to my own children, I made my mother write down the words, and now my daughter sings them to hers. My grandmother's favourite was 'Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen' but we all prefer the Ogopogo song.

Any idea as to who wrote and who sang the Ogo Pogo song? It looks as though it was terrific!

Ah - found it: "a 1924 English music hall song called "The Ogo-Pogo: The Funny Fox-Trot", by Cumberland Clark and Mark Strong." And it was recorded by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra (of all things)!

Youtube scores again

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQE8T6Ip6Ic
long musical intro

Glad someone mentioned the Scouse lullaby. Oh you are a mucky kid,dirty as a dustbin lid but I said it to my two. I think it is Seventies. Always missed off the "you'll get a belt from yer da." Though.

My mother and father never sang.

My grandmother would always sing the same hymn when she was doing her housework;
''Let's all gather by the river
The beautiful beautiful river
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God''.

This had been a hymn from her childhood.She was born in 1897, and I've never heard it since my granny last sang it.