Most of the songs and other doggerel on this record are directly derived from the book Immortalia, Thomas Du'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy and a few are pure bawdy folklore which, apparently, survived in oral tradition.
- [members of the Norman Luboff Choir]
-
The Earthy Side
- King David [recitation] Time: 0:10
- There Was An Old Farmer Time: 0:45
- Dead-eye Dick [recitation] Time: 0:41
- Her Whole Estate Time: 0:29
- Love Song [recitation] Time: 0:12
- Old Fashioned Harlot Time: 1:36
- Some Die Of Drinking Whiskey Time: 0:21
- Dark-eyed Gentleman Time: 1:54
- Old Boy [recitation] Time: 0:15
- Gentlemen Will Please Refrain Time: 0:55
- His Only Limitation [recitation] Time: 0:06
- Yellow, Yellow Yorlin Time: 2:08
- Invitation [recitation] Time: 0:12
- Young Man Of Calcutta Time: 0:28
- Advise To A Young Man [story] Time: 2:04
- Adultery Ad Absurdum Time: 0:32
- Ropey Squadron Time: 1:35
- Funiculi, Funicula Time: 0:47
- Pastorale ["The Sheep Herd Lay in the Tall, Tall Grass...", recitation] Time: 0:42
- Lydia Pinkham Time: 2:15
- Now That I'm Old [recitation, has been used as a toast] Time: 0:32
- Yankee Doodle Time: 1:08
- Song [aka Sylvia The Fair] Time: 1:54
- Did I Say All [recitation, has been used as a toast] Time: 0:28
- John Harrolson Time: 2:02
- Twenty Toes [toast] Time: 0:12
- Old Dan Tucker Time: 1:19
- Punkt [recitation] Time: 0:06
- The Sexual Life Of The Camel Time: 0:29
- My Lady's Coachman Time: 0:52
- A Man Of Audacity [recitation] Time: 1:13
- Bona Nox Time: 0:42
- Bastard King Of England Time: 1:53
-
From the LP cover:
D.H. Lawrence's "dirty little secret" -- thanks to the foul-mindedness of Cromwell, Comstock, the bloody "Widder of Windsor" and the Church Militant (subverted through the ages by randy monks) -- has never really been dirty, nor little, (Pantragruel's cod was hardly that) nor secret. Rabelais' kindred sprits were of all tongues and roared out lyrics that liberate.
In this exhilarating album are thirty-three such engaging items: songs, couplets, limericks, letters of advice and whatnots: thy are all music to the ear of a free man. To Mr. Pinchface and Miss Pinchtwat, to the purse-lipped serf, they are a horror to all others, a joy. Molly Bloom would have found this music
[inside gatefold]
to fuck by especially in the company of Blazes Boylan, Leopol would have found it enthralling -- in stoking the furnace of his fantasies. Of course, Joxer would have murmured to Captain Boyle: "A darlin' album, a darlin' album." Even when sober.
The sources are in some cases not unexpected: Robert Burns, Ben Franklin, Joyce, Elizabethans, Restoration pop artists and soldiers. But who'd have thought it of Eugene Field? "Little Boy Blue" may moisten the eye, but "King David" lubricates elsewhere. Young John Dryden may have memorialized Cromwell, but Old John merited the laurel wreath if only for his delightful song -- celebrating the delicate, yet exquisite, tumbling of Sylvia. Thought Thomas Hardy is best remembered for Jude's intellectual longings and Tess's troubles, "The Dark Eyed Gentleman" indicates his more gamey nature. His poem is closer than a kissing cousin to "Foggy, Foggy Dew." Astonishments and delights are in abundance here.
Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound was 76 proof. Naturally, it was popular with nice old ladies of the Temperance League; its alcoholic content was Lydia's "dirty, little secret." The ads, inescapable at the time, featured a prim ma'am of God-fearing mien. Thus a woman's "complaint" was assuaged in her getting religiously smashed; Bible and bottle side by side. Was she aware of the ribald anthem it inspired, sung out by sorority sisters, who pre-dated Women's Lib?
Familiar and sometimes sacred songs are lovely setups for scatological lyrics. "Yankee Doodle" is a natural. Unfortunate school-children have been denied the red, white and blue delight of leaning the latter.
It is strange that the Civil War, source of more songs than any other event in our history, has produced so few racy ones. Dell Wiley, most prolific recorder of soldiers' correspondence, has a hunch there were quite a few improvised up front; the boys hesitated in enlightening the folks back home. They were a blushing bunch. "John Harrolson" is a howling exception, a ribald beauty, salvaged by the lead soloist of this album. More of him anon.
We have Billy Herndon to thank for handing down Lincoln's story of the flatulent host. It was a matter of farting with aplomb -- or grace under pressure.
Reasons of one sort or another have been offered for the denial of Poet Laureateship to Rudyard Kipling. The familiar one ... his bitter "Widder Of Windsor." (Victoria was a dirty old woman in so many ways.) More to the pint may have been his authorship of "The Bastard King of England." Even this celebrant of Empire has his anti-royalist moments. It's a beaut. Along this line, in World War I and II, when a Tommy grumbled, "Fuck the king", his buddy was known to reply, "Fuck him? You can't even approach the bastard." You need not be Mick Jagger to appreciated this song.
Succint and elegant are the works here. They are remembered because they are so anti-Muzakal. Most important, there is a feeling to the performances. Reverence.
The bass-baritone, whose orotundity pervades this album, has for many years been soloist in some of our most distinguished -- shall we say most High ? -- churches. Episcopalian and Presbyterian, of course. His father was a clergyman. Baptist, of course. His tasts are catholic, of course. What his thoughts were during those solemn Sunday mornings as he sonorously rolled out "Oh Lord, Our Help In Ages Past" while formally-clad ushers were bringing in the sheaves, only he can tell. It is between himself and God. His performances on this album, both in recitative and in song, are quite obviously a joyous letting go. His experience with American and British forces did him no apparent linguistic harm. Nor his wide mastery of Schubert, Wolf and Schumann lieder. A natural Leporello. Or for that matter, the Don himself. Oh yeah, there is a little Mozart in his package, too. Of course.
The other voices are equally equipped, religiously as well as musically. Members of a celebrated choral group, they have approached the Task with the air of pilgrims.
What wondrous loves is this
Ho, my Lord, oh my Lord....?
Studs Terkel
Author of HARD TIMES
Billboard magazine December 12, 1970 has this clip:
