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Thursday, 28 August 2008

Bally Bottom Button

Buttons are a blinkin bally nuisance you'll agree,
Buttonin' bally buttons is a blinkin' bore to me,
If I had no bally buttons on my clothes I know,
I could put more dinners where good dinners ought to go,
Supper is the only decent meal I ever get,
And I do enjoy my suppers by the way,
For I undo my buttons but each morning when I wake,
I always call the missis up and say.

     I can't do my bally bottom button up,
     Can't do my bally bottom button up,
     And it's so tight and it serves me right,
     Must have eaten too much grub last night,
     I can't do my bally bottom button up,
     And though you think it's fun,
     What's the use of buttoning the other bally buttons,
     When the bally bottom button's undone.

     What's the use of buttoning the other bally buttons,
     When the bally bottom button's undone.
Etc.
Recorded by Ian Wallace in 1961. The song may be older. But you are right, nothing on Youtube.

Posted on 08/28/2008 9:55 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Comments
28 Aug 2008
Send an emailMary Jackson

Brilliant - thank you!



28 Aug 2008
Paul Blaskowicz

Thanks Es - distanly remembered words.  The version I saw was Gerald Campion (aka Billy Bunter) and the buttons referred to were on his waistcoat  but it's done with fly buttons as well -apparently.  I think it long pre-dates Wallace's version - must be 1920s.

 

I know a delicious joke about a boarding-house landlady in Ballybunion, Ireland and a group of young men that she throws out of the house...all except for one.. but it's a bit too near the knuckle for these hallowed comment boxes.. 

The Johnie Ray song from the late 50s Walking my Baby Back Home contains the lines ( something like) We stop for a while/She gives me a smile/And cuddles her cheek to my chest/Then we start to pet/And that's when I get /Her powder all over my vest - which was fairly shocking for a British audience, but unremarkable for Americans for whom "vest" is waistcoat.





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