My Old Man's a Dustman

DESCRIPTION: "My old man's a dustman/guardsman, He fought at the Battle of Mons. He killed ten thousand Germans With only a couple of bombs." The song describes the horrid casualties, concluding, Flies are bad, bugs are worse, If you sing any more I'll start to curse"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1948 (Dallas-TheCruelWars-100SoldiersSongs)
KEYWORDS: soldier death bug music
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Dallas-TheCruelWars-100SoldiersSongs, p. 185, "(no title)" (1 text)
Pegler-SoldiersSongsAndSlangoftheGreatWar, pp. 335-336, "My Old Man's a Guardsman" (1 text)
Roud #30347
SAME TUNE:
Rooty (File: PSoS343)
NOTES [61 words]: Steve Roud lists this as a parody of "My Old Man's a Dustman" (which is Roud #32562). But given that this is a World War I song, and the other "Dustman" song does not seem to have been known before Lonnie Donegan recorded it in 1960 (and, indeed, was copyrighted by Lonnie Donegan, Peter Buchanan, and Beverly Thorn), I suspect the parodying goes the other way. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.1
File: CalC185

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