Is there a Tune Title that amuses you?

I’ve just rather belatedly added a comment(alternatve name) to an old Tune thread for the Monk’s Jig. I know it as “Did you see my man looking for me?”(Breathnach’s Ceol Rince Vol.1)
The title got me thinking what on earth was going on in the naming?Is there a story behind this or was it just repeating a girl’s phrase heard by the author.
“McFadden’s Handsome Daughter”(O’Neill’s-1289) now that’s a grand name for a tune.If I told a girl these days she was handsome she wouldn’t be impressed.But my late dad from South Armagh-now he would understand.

I’ve always had to stifle a giggle at the Atholl Highlanderth.

“Micky Chewing Bubblegum”. I believe this tune to be Bill Sullivan’s.

But Will, Isn’t that the tune you submitted to the Mighty Craic????…..

Jolly Clamdiggers
Floating Crowbar
Otter’s Holt

Wot’s so funny about the Otter’s Holt? We’ve all got to live somewhere!

The Appropriate Dipstick

Fasten the Leg In Her

The Rose in the Heather

An Phis Fliuch

Kitty Got A Clinking

The Duke of Leinster’s Wife

My mind comes up to the gutter to feed…

Can I say a recent one?

Oh well, too late!

Revenge of the Smelly Whistle

I get such bad pictures in my head when I think of it @_@;

Murphy’s Bush
Fanny Flaherty’s Ferret
S’you a Minger, Mum?
Fanny Power
Lord of the Dannys (OK, I made that one up)
Th Cat that Kittled in James’s Wig (Johnny Doherty)

Jim

I’d rather be married then Left
O’Sulliven’s Farewell to the Scottish Horse
Upstairs in a Tent
Good morning to your nightcap
Who be then you now?

Cat’s Rambles in the Child’s Saucepan… one has to wander what sort of surprise the cat left

I Buried My Wife and Danced on her Grave… a nice lovely one for Valentine’s Day.

Shave the Donkey (alt name for Shoe the Donkey)- I can’t imagine what that would look like!

Behind the Bushes in the Garden- I KNOW I’m not the only one who gets ideas from that one!

Put Me In the Big Box (a Cape Breton Wedding reel!) Which big box is it they’re referring to?? *snicker*

Pied came up with one a while back that made me smile-

The Drug Dealer: Over the Water for Charlie

But these tunes are abstract ditties that bare no relation to their titles.
However, a bird in the hand is worth one in kate’s bushG

Suprised no one has said “My Darling is A Sheep” yet. It is an alt. name for “My Darling is Asleep.”

Behind The Haystack, aka Squeeze Your Thighs

Father Kelly’s Rolling In The Ryegrass

(I’ve always lived on the edge of town and have always been used to the fields and woods 🙂 )

Trevor

oops! a comma seems to have got left out after “Father Kelly’s” 🙂
Trevor

How about Phil Cunningham’s tune that goes something like, “Simon Mackenzie’s Welcome to his Twin Sisters from Canada”

or Squire Wood’s Lamentation on the Refusal of his Halfpence

from the Seattle Piper’s club- if you’re drunk, is it sex that you want for the afore mentioned If you’re sick, is it tea that you want

Johnny Cunningham had one called “the Fox in the Microwave” (reference to an urban legend).

There’s a tune on one of Alasdair Fraser’s CD’s called

‘There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket 17 times as high as the moon’ (WTF!)

An old nursery rhyme Paul, sung to the tune Lillibulero:

There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket 17 times as high as the moon.
Where she was going I could not but ask it, for in her hand she carried a broom
O whither, O whither? old woman quoth I,
O whither, O whither, O whither so high?
To sweep the cobwebs from the sky, will you come with me? No not I.

The “hoor” at the hockey match!

Gamble and Shite.
Johny Cock Up Your Beaver
PP

The Night We Had The Goats
With Her Lovely Long Hair Flowing Down Her Back And The Colour Of Her Golden Hair Was Black

The Night We Had the Goats

The Connacht Heifers

The Night Before Larry Was Stretched

The Ass In the Graveyard

The Hoor in the Nettles

It depends on whether or not we are talking about the original titles or some form of parody(Is that the best word?) such as “Hector the Heroin addict” which I find hilarious.

There is a danger with amusing titles in that some players are tempted to include them in their repertoire just because of the title. The tune itself might be crap. We’ve discussed this before, though. 🙂

Bernie Stocks from Belfast told me years ago about a friend of his who played a tune called “My Granny Went To Lourdes And Drowned In The Pool”, and got beaten up by a nun for his pains.

Cat In The Fiddle Case

I’ve seen that happen.

Trevor

The Day We Paid The Rent
McHugh’s Other Foot
Four-And-Twenty Blackbirds Dancing On A Fawn Skin

A couple of modern tune titles (I haven’t heard the tunes, but they exist):
Bonaparte Crossing His Eyes
The Great Waltz of China

A couple of titles that amuse me:
Smash the Windows
Farewell to Whiskey

‘Johnny With the Queer Thing’ is the title O‘Neill’s gives for the tune usually known nowadays as ’The Sailor on the Rock’.

“Kissing and Drinking”

“The Red Velvet Jesus”

“Does This Look Infected?”

“That’ll Make Ye Blind”

Randal Bays once played a brilliant tune for me once that he said was written by a teenager in the Pacific North West, and it was titled, “Like I Care.” I like to imagine that her music pals asked her what she was going to call her new tune. Then when she shrugged her pals warned that when people play her tune -- they won’t know what to call it… to which she might have replied, “Like I care.”

What’s the name of that tune ? - “Ask me Father”.
Or, on the sleeve notes of a “Tannahill Weavers” LP, when they asked the Irish band “The Wild Geese”: “what’s the name of that tune” ? Answer: - “Phuktiphanno”, and so it was called on the record - [ it was “The Humours Of Whiskey”. ]

think someone mentioned it, but i enjoy when sick is it tea you want.

my grandpa said there’s a tune with a title that has something to do with “i beat my wife” or something

It hasn’t been written yet, but I’ve long wanted to write a tune called “The Vindaloo Hornpipe” to play in a set with “The Stool of Repentance”.

This isn’t a tune title, or Irish, but it’s amusing; first line of an English folk song, from my past…

A ploughman dresses fine, he drinks strong beer, ale and wine
And the best of tobacco he do smoke
Pretty girls don’t think amiss a ploughman for to kiss
For his breath smells as sweet as a rose.

Someone’s having a laugh!

Actually when I was learning Developmental Psychology at University, (hundreds of years ago) we learned about issues of power and control in kids aged about two, and how they can suffer later in life from over-punitive potty-training. Some stuff about if your Mum was really vicious about it you could end up as an armed robber later in life (Oh, Sigmund, Sigmund…).

I could never look at The Stool of Repentance in music books after that. I even think I’ve avoided it deliberately, but subconsciously. And now, s1m0n, you’ve gone and reminded me of it again! Arrrghhhh!

There is a tune on this site called Up Downey, which sounds very rude indeed to me!

Alison (Downey!)

Billy Supped the Bedleg

Nsmed for an incident back in the days when beercans were made of stronger stuff than now; when Bill and his missus stopped over at a place where one leg of the bed was missing, and that corner of the bed was supported on a can of beer. Mrs Bill reports that come the morning, the can was empty.

My personal favourite has to be “Fanny Power” I’m just amazed the Spice Girls never covered it!

Alison--“Up Downey” isn’t rude.It’s what you shout when County Down are playing football.
(Sorry it’s my late Dad from South Armagh again!)
Peter
(London)

I’ll Touzle Your Kurchy

i’m sure it’s quite innocent, but it makes ya wonder…

update, ‘…your kurchy’ is now uploaded…

The Old Bush
Saint Ruth’s Bush
tee hee hee……….
oh and of course An Phis Fhliuch.

The Old Bush?

Aparently that’s Wayne Rooney’s favourite reel.

I’ll Touzle your Kurchy - I will tousle (ruffle, generally mess up) your kerchief (neckerchief, scarf, small shawl, possibly headscarf).

Sorry foxpaw. I was disappointed too.


Another favourite title is “Piss on the Grass”.

Can anyone shed any light on:
“Mary Eleanor Cock his hairs on’t”

An phis fliuch
the old bush
behind the haystack
fly up my cock
among many, many others

‘drink the rest and hide the bottle’ - a slip jig; ‘the scutterin duck’ not sure if the latter is a real tune. when asked the name of a reel one night, my uncle said this to fob off some egotistical gobshite who was annoyin the musicians…‘Lickin’ the Bonnet’ is a tune I came up with myself. Dunno if the origins of the name can be repeated on this website tho!!

Granny hold the candle while I shave the chicken’s lip

as a ‘recovering’ catholic, i was amused by ‘the popes toe’

. . . and a great little (maybe not so little now) box player, gary connerly, named one of his (i think best) tunes :
‘’wrangle through the dangle-berries‘’ _class name, class tune

you’ll all agree with me when you hear it . . .

This is a funny thread.
Someone was just looking for something like this;
Favorite Tune Names
March 3rd 2009 by Whiddler
https://thesession.org/discussions/20834