On Sat, 2009-10-24 at 12:06 +0100, Alastair Wilson wrote:
> David Page is absolutely right that the tune is older than World War 1
> - in 'The Maltese Cat' (set in the 1880s), after the polo match, the
> Archangels' band hammers out 'Ooh, Kafoozalum" "reproachfully to the
> losing team". But I doubt that the tune would have been used if the
> words were as vulgar as the 'Harlot of Jerusalem" variety!
I don't know about that; it *was* a military band. I have, however,
seen a set of dignified and rather pompous words set to the same tune,
about (IIRC) a pair of young lovers who saved their city from some
disaster or other. At the time I read it, I took it to be a bowlderized
version of the vulgar song, suitable for quoting when a woman or child
asked what you were humming, but I suppose it *may* have been the
original and the vulgar song a parody.
The "Maltese Cat" reference, by the way, is directly and solely
responsible for my knowing the words of both songs. I loved "The
Maltese Cat" as a child, and my uncle tactfully but firmly stopped me
from searching for the words to "Kafoozalum" in the grown-up section of
the library as an enthusiastic nine-year-old, telling me that they were
not suitable for children, but I then went to the trouble of looking
them up in my college days, and I was rather shocked. The book in which
I found it also had the pompous variant, and I thought to myself, "Aha,
other children before me have gone on the same quest!" I'm sorry to say
that I no longer remember the name of the book.
--
Meredith Dixon <[log in to unmask]>
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