Ribaldry, or blue comedy, is humorous entertainment that ranges from bordering on indelicacy to gross indecency. It is also referred to as "bawdiness", "gaminess" or "bawdy".
Flanders and Swann were a British comedy duo. Lyricist, actor, and singer Michael Flanders (1922–1975) and composer and pianist Donald Swann (1923–1994) collaborated in writing and performing comic songs. They first worked together at a school revue in 1939 and eventually wrote more than a hundred comic songs together.
The "Battle Hymn of the Republic", also known as "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" outside of the United States, is a lyric by the American writer Julia Ward Howe using the music from the song "John Brown's Body". Howe's more famous lyrics were written in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. The song links the judgment of the wicked at the end of the age with the American Civil War. Since that time, it has become an extremely popular and well-known American patriotic song.
"On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at" is a folk song from Yorkshire, England. It is sung in the Yorkshire dialect, and is considered the unofficial anthem of Yorkshire. According to tradition, the words were composed by members of a church choir on an outing to Ilkley Moor near Ilkley, West Yorkshire.
"I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" is a patter song from Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance. It is perhaps the most famous song in Gilbert and Sullivan's operas. Sung by Major General Stanley at his first entrance, towards the end of Act I, the character introduces himself by presenting his résumé and admitting to a few shortcomings. The song satirises the idea of the "modern" educated British Army officer of the latter 19th century. It is difficult to perform because of the fast pace and tongue-twisting nature of the lyrics.
The "Eton Boating Song" is the best known of the school songs associated with Eton College that are sung at the end of year concert and on other important occasions. It is also played during the procession of boats. The words of the song were written by William Johnson Cory, an influential Master at the school. The melody was composed by an Old Etonian and former pupil of Cory, Captain Algernon Drummond and transcribed by T. L. Mitchell-Innes. The piano accompaniment was written by Evelyn Wodehouse. It was first performed on 4 June 1863. Ordinarily, only the first, sixth, seventh and eighth stanzas are sung. Contrary to popular belief, the "Eton Boating Song" is not the school song of Eton College, that being "Carmen Etonense".
"I Used to Work in Chicago" is a drinking song. It was written by songwriter and entertainer Larry Vincent. The earliest printed date for the song is March 1945 in the underground mimeographed songbook Songs of the Century, however versions of the song circulated "on the street" as early as 1938 according to the Digital Tradition Folk Music Database. Many of the lyrics are considered humorous because of the oblique sexual references. The song is often chanted by various British university sports teams.
"One More Drink for the Four of Us" is a traditional drinking and marching song. It became popular during the First World War, and has been widely repurposed for other marches, college bands, and social clubs. It is referenced in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly is a children's rhyme and nonsense song of a kind known as cumulative. The song tells the nonsensical story of an old woman who swallows increasingly large animals, each to catch the previously swallowed animal, but dies after swallowing a horse. The humour of the song stems from the absurdity that the woman is able to inexplicably and impossibly swallow animals of preposterous sizes without dying, suggesting that she is both superhuman and immortal; however, the addition of a horse is finally enough to kill her. Her inability to survive after swallowing the horse is an event that abruptly and unexpectedly applies real-world logic to the song, directly contradicting her formerly established logic-defying animal-swallowing capability.
"All Things Bright and Beautiful" is an Anglican hymn, also sung in many other Christian denominations. The words are by Cecil Frances Alexander and were first published in her Hymns for Little Children.
"On the Banks of the Old Raritan" is a song, or alma mater, associated with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in the United States. The original lyrics were written in 1873 by Howard Newton Fuller, an 1874 graduate of Rutgers College. Fuller quickly prepared the song as a school hymn for the college's Glee Club, an all-male choral ensemble, before a performance in Metuchen, New Jersey. Fuller chose to set the lyrics to the tune of melody, "On the Banks of the Old Dundee", a popular Scottish melody regarded as a drinking song, and titled the song for the Raritan River.
"Isn't It Romantic?" is a popular song and part of the Great American Songbook. The music was composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. It has a 32-bar chorus in A–B–A–C form. Alec Wilder, in his book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators 1900–1950, calls it "a perfect song."
The "Limerick" is a traditional humorous drinking song with many obscene verses. The tune usually used for sung limericks is traditionally "Cielito Lindo," with the words arranged in the form of a limerick.
Archie Green was an American folklorist specializing in laborlore and American folk music. Devoted to understanding vernacular culture, he gathered and commented upon the speech, stories, songs, emblems, rituals, art, artifacts, memorials, and landmarks which constitute laborlore. He is credited with winning Congressional support for passage of the American Folklife Preservation Act of 1976, which established the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress.
"You Took Advantage of Me" is a 1928 popular song composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart, for the musical Present Arms (1928), where it was introduced by Joyce Barbour and Busby Berkeley as the characters Edna Stevens and Douglas Atwell. The characters were formerly married, but still have romantic feelings for each other. On opening night, Berkeley forgot the lyrics and had to scat and hum the entire second verse. Berkeley also claimed that his nonsense lyrics for the improvised second verse left Hart "almost apoplectic", but the audience was amused and Hart later forgave him. The song was subsequently included in the 1930 film Leathernecking, an adaptation of Present Arms.
"The Cuckoo" is a traditional English folk song, also sung in the USA, Canada, Scotland and Ireland. It has been covered by many musicians in several different styles. An early notable recorded version was performed by Appalachian folk musician Clarence Ashley with a unique banjo tuning.
The Red Flag is a socialist song, emphasising the sacrifices and solidarity of the international labour movement. It is the anthem of the British Labour Party, Irish nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, and Irish Labour Party. The song is traditionally sung at the close of each party's national conference.
National Lampoon Songbook was an American humorous songbook which was issued in 1976. Although it appears to be a book in its own right, it was a "special issue" of National Lampoon magazine and as such it was only sold on newsstands. People who had a subscription to the magazine would still have to buy these special issues; they were not included in the subscription.
