I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

DESCRIPTION: "Down at Barnum's fair, one evening I was there When I heard a showman shouting underneath a flair, 'I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts, There they are, all standing in a row.... Give 'em a twist, a flick of the wrist" to try to win the coconut game
AUTHOR: Fred Heatherton (source: Gardner; Wickipedia)
EARLIEST DATE: 1944 (copyright)
KEYWORDS: game humorous
FOUND IN:
Roud #24267
RECORDINGS:
Sam Pointon, "The Coconut Song" (Fragment: Piotr-Archive #1450, recorded 07/30/2025)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts
NOTES [173 words]: Edward Foote Gardner, Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century: Volume I -- Chart Detail & Encyclopedia 1900-1949, Paragon House, 2000, p. 499, estimates that this was the thirty-third most popular song in America in 1949, peaking at #10 in November 1949 (#1 for the year being "Some Enchanted Evening"). The most successful recording was made in 1949 by Merv Griffin of all people (RCA Victor 20-3554), though the sheet music on Wikipedia shows Danny Kaye, whose recording (Decca 24784) was apparently not particularly successful.
The song is about the game of "coconut shy" or "coconut toss" in which one throws a ball at a coconut to try to dislodge it. It's worth noting that a typical coconut has a mass of about two kilograms -- i.e. it weighs between about 3.5 and 5 pounds. The balls one throws at it are much smaller and lighter. And the coconuts are often in some sort of perch from which they are hard to dislodge. You have to throw both hard and accurately to knock one down. Which is why it's a good game -- for the house. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: DPio1450

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