Babes in Toyland–Herbert’s Songs of Humor
When we think about operetta, we immediately jump to one conclusion–a mass of operatic love songs, fighting songs and patriotic marches. We think of powerful music and heroic staging. But there was–and is–so much more.
In this post, we are going to plunge, head first, into the songs that parody or laugh at all of the rigid conventions, even those found in nursery rhymes. You will never think of little Bo-Peep in quite the same way; mathematical word problems will be a source of humor and not tears; and “Rock-a-Bye Baby” will forever be a song of delight. Because there is so much to explore, let’s start straight away.
We will start with the number, entitled “Don’t Cry Bo-Peep.” In this song, Herbert playfully lampooned the hapless girl who lost her sheep. Here are the lyrics:
TOM:
What is the matter, Little Bo-Peep?
BO-PEEP:
I have been careless and lost my sheep!
TOM:
Say, have you seen them, Jack and Jill? During your journey up the hill?
JACK & JILL:
They’re not on the hilltop, but in the wood,
They may have met with Red Riding Hood.
PIPER CHILDREN:
Don’t cry, Bo-Peep, don’t cry
To find your sheep, we’ll try,
We’ll seek them far, we’ll seek them wide,
We’ll seek them low and high!
BO-PEEP:
Oh, Sallie Waters and Miss Muffet, too,
Have my stray lambkins been seen by you?
SALLIE WATERS:
Better ask Curly Locks, fresh from the fair,
She or Boy Blue may have seen them there
BOY BLUE:
Where they are hiding, Tom Tucker may know, Simon or Peter or Bobby Shaftoe!
PIPER CHILDREN:
Never mind, Bo-Peep,
We will find your sheep
No matter where they be –
So be gay, Bo-Peep,
Though astray, your sheep,
Soon home again you’ll see!
Give a smile, Bo-Peep,
For awhile your sheep
May browse in pastures new,
Never mind, Bo-Peep,
We will find your sheep
And bring them home to you!
Baa! Baa! Baa!
It was the black sheep that led them away,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
For this the rascal shall certainly pay
Led them away by the tales that he told,
Far from their meadow and far from their home
Baa! Baa! Baa! Baa!
Now, let’s listen as the song is sung in a London recording studio.
If you have ever been forced to solve mathematical word problems, you will immediately identify with the nonsensical lyrics that were written for this song in Act One–“I Can’t Do the Sum.”
JANE:
If a steamship weighed ten thousand tons
And sailed five thousand miles
With a cargo large of overshoes
And carving knives and files
If the mates were almost six feet high
And the bos’n near the same
Would you subtract or multiply
To find the captain’s name?
JANE & PIPER CHILDREN:
Oh! Oh! Oh!
Put down six and carry two,
Gee! But this is hard to do;
You can think and think and think
Till your brains are numb,
I don’t care what teacher says
I can’t do the sum
JANE:
If Clarence took fair Gwendolin
Out for an auto ride
And if at sixty miles an hour
One kiss to capture tried
And quite forgot the steering gear
On her honeyed lips to sup,
How soon would twenty men with brooms
Sweep Clare and Gwennie up?
If a woman had an English pug,
Ten children and a cat,
And she tried in seven hours to find
A forty dollar flat,
With naught but sunny outside rooms,
In a neighborhood of tone,
How old would those ten children be,
Before they found a home?
If Harold took sweet Imogene
With him one eve to dine,
And ordered half the bill of fare,
With cataracts of wine,
If the bill of fare were thirteen ninety five,
And poor Harold had but four,
How many things would Harold strike
Before he struck the floor?
If a pound of prunes cost thirteen cents
At half past one today,
And the grocer is so bald he wears
A dollar five toupee,
And if with ev’ry pound of tea,
He will give two cut glass plates,
How soon would Willie break his face,
On his new roller skates?
And now we listen to this wonderful performance by Korliss Ueker.
Next, we are going to explore a parody of “Rock-a-Bye Baby.” The song is repeated several times by Herbert, each time with differing arrangements of the same song. While it is nominally a lullaby, in this instance you will quickly see the humorous approach as Hugh Panaro provides us with his version of a London Nanny. Our personal favorite is the lampoon of Italian opera later in the performance. Here are the lyrics for the number, which in the score is called “Song of the Poet:”
ALAN:
Now once upon a time a poet wrote
A song about a baby in a tree,
Where up in the branches high,
A tender lullaby,
Was a warbled by the breezes blowing free
That little song went all the world around,
But the poet never heard it till one day
While in London on a lark,
A nursemaid in a park,
Sang it to a naughty infant in this way:
(Cockney accent.)
Rockabye baby in the treetop –
“I shall certainly slap you in a moment”
When the wind blows the cradle will rock –
“Wherever is your bottle? ‘Ave you swallowed it?”
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall –
“Good evenik, Sargent!”
Down comes the cradle and baby and all –
“There you gow! Out of the perambulator again! And a course you ‘ad to fall on your face! Nasty brat!”
The poet thought that he the world would see,
In search of both experience and fame,
So he took his stick and grip,
And skipped upon a ship,
And thus to the great United States he came
One ev’ning he had nothing else to do,
So he chanced into a music hall to stray,
Where the leader of a band,
Quite famous in the land,
Played the poet’s well-known lullaby this way:
(Tempo di Marcia.)
ALAN & CHORUS:
Rockabye baby in the treetop,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
Down comes the cradle and baby and all.
ALAN:
Once more across the waves the poet went,
A time to spend in sunny Italy,
There a visit he did plan To musical Milan,
Very celebrated home of melody
Of music he set out to get his fill,
And again he heard a noted leader play
‘Twas his lullaby sublime,
But changed around the time,
For in Italy they treated it this way:
(Alan and Chorus ala Giuseppe Creatore.)
ALAN & CHORUS:
Rockbye baby in treetop
When the wind blows cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks cradle fall
Ah down, ah down, come cradle babe and all
Rockabye baby bye, bye
ALAN:
It happened that the poet chanced to pay
A visit to the fair and sunny South,
Where the sweet magnolias grow,
And Tropic breezes blow,
And the ‘gators lark about the river’s mouth
‘Twas there a cullud mammy that he met
Who had likewise heard the poet’s famous song,
And she struggled all the day
To learn it in a way
But the way in which she learned it was all wrong:
ALAN & CHORUS:
Rockabye baby mah baby mine
Swinging up thar in the top o’ the pine
An’ if yo come a tumblin’ to the groun’
Yo mammy’ll kotch you on the way down.
The final song from the original show in 1903 that qualifies as a parody is called “Before and After” and is a very funny lampoon of marriage and what happens when the bloom of romance fades into history. Here are some of the lyrics of the song:
ALAN:
Before they were married they talked like this,
“Will Lovey’s own Dovey give Love a kiss?
Will Owney’s own Ownest be ever true and
Oos ‘ittle Oozelly Oose is oo?”
ALAN & MARY
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Pardon the laughter
That was before but this is after
No wise man will disparage marriage
Yet still it is exceeding strange
That when you marry
Unless you’re wary
You both will find a dreadful change!
MARY:
Before they were married when out they went,
A coupe or hansom or hack he’d rent
“My dearest,” he told her, “My heart’s own queen,
You ne’er in a trolley car shall be seen”!
And here is the performance from the London recording.
This post is getting long in the tooth, so we will provide the rest of the songs on Thursday. See you then!