More Music-Hall Songs

How little do we know the consequences of our acts. “I say there is not a red Indian, hunting by Lake Winnipic, can quarrel with his squaw, but the whole world must smart for it: will not the price of beaver rise? It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the Universe.” That was Carlyle’s way of putting it. Somebody wrote a book of theatrical reminiscences: the book set Mr. William Archer pondering on the fatuity of music-halls; Mr. Archer’s article made me try to remember comic fragments of music-hall songs; and my observations would appear, judging from the quantities of correspondence they have produced, to have tempted whole families to spend their evenings trying to recall the popular choruses of their youth.

Numbers of them seem to have better memories than mine. Whole verses of More Work for the Undertaker (I think it was Mr. Dunville’s song) reach me. The scheme may be illustrated by one stanza:

I am afraid that I should have to grant Mr. Archer the verse: the second line, especially, cannot be called a model of good craftsmanship. But the chorus is very neat. It was varied with each verse. Another correspondent’s specimen finishes with “For Frederick’s fragments.”

I must bow to the correspondent who suggests that the success of the song about the bride with artificial limbs was at least as much due to lines he quotes as it was to “’Arf a woman and ’arf a tree.” His lines are:

An equally impolite chorus is that of Herbert Campbell’s ’Blige a Lady which another correspondent sends. The conductor, on a rainy day, asked the inside males to give up a seat to a lady and go outside, and the reply was on the lines of

That is very typical music-hall; and it will be observed that it gets its effect by sticking close, as Wordsworth advised, to the natural phraseology and sequence of everyday speech.

Mr. Albert Chevalier, I admit, I did not mention. He has not been primarily a music-hall artist, and Mr. Archer himself made an exception of his songs. Some of Mr. Gus Elen’s certainly might be quoted: e. g. ’E dunno where ’e are and What’s the Use of looking out for Work? I am afraid that I am not sufficiently well informed to answer questions as to the sources of supply of modern music-hall songs. The only thing I have observed is that large numbers of the worst ones are composed by persons whose names suggest that the use of the English language is with them rather an acquired than an inherited characteristic. How far the practice prevails of a particular star employing a tame author to write the words of all his songs for him I do not know. I have never consciously met a writer of music-hall songs, though I did know one man who made two attempts to produce what he thought the right sort of commodity. He sent them to an entrepreneur, but all his wit was wasted. The chorus of one song mentioned a well-known and much-advertised comestible: this wouldn’t do, as all the vendors of similar articles would be jealous and, possibly, refuse to advertise any more on the programme. In the other song the author had had the misfortune to hit upon an idea which had been used before. His refrain was:

But there was an old song with the same tail to it. It was a song about a pigeon-pie which was no better than it should be. This reminds me that in tabulating favourite music-hall subjects one should certainly have mentioned bad smells. Throughout history any reference to unpleasant smells has moved the Englishman to roars of laughter. Perhaps it is because we so thoroughly dislike them. I don’t think that these odours take all nations in quite the same way: but travellers on the Continent are sometimes tempted to think that most nations do not notice them so much as we do.

The music-hall versifier, usually feeble when funny, is certainly at his worst when serious. Such of the war-songs as I have heard are dreadful. Perhaps those I have not heard are better. Early in the war I was looking into a music-shop window in Upper Shaftesbury Avenue and saw two typical titles. One was Only a Bit of Khaki that Daddy wore at Mons, and the other was The Little Irish Red Cross Nurse. I did not dare to buy them, but I could not help admiring the ingenuity of the author of the second who had managed to work the perennial Irish Girl theme so neatly into the new subject. All music-hall poets seem to be obsessed by Irish girls. They will even work them into translations of foreign songs which do not mention them. Five or six years ago a German music-hall song which had nothing whatever to do with Irish girls was imported and became very popular here. The ideas of the original were largely preserved, but an Irish girl had to be stuck in. But quo, Musa, tendis? If I go on like this I shall end by agreeing with Mr. Archer.