Wild West Show, The

DESCRIPTION: "We're off to see the Wild West Show, Elephants and the kangaroos, Never mind the weather, As long as we're together, We're off to see the Wild West Show." Verses may be recited, and are often obscene, regarding the various unlikely animals in the show
AUTHOR: unknown (but with connections to Ben Jonson; see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1968 (Morgan, More Rugby Songs -- but see NOTES)
KEYWORDS: animal humorous scatological recitation
FOUND IN: Britain(England) US Australia Netherlands
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Ed Cray, Richard Reuss, and John Patrick, _The Wild West Show: A Tangle of Tales and TItles_, Occasional Papers in Folklore No. 4, Loomis House Press, 2014 (4 tunes, plus numerous texts; see the NOTES)
Roud #4831
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Van Amburgh's Menagerie
The Hamburg Show
The Hamburg Zoo
The Royal Wild Beast Show
NOTES [93 words]: Ed Cray's The Wild West Show, surely one of the most extensive examinations ever compiled of the history of a particular song, finds a continuous thematic chain between this song and an item in Ben Jonson's 1614 play "The Humours of Bartholomew Fair." I would not consider them the same song (which makes dating "The Wild West Show" rather problematic), but the idea very likely does go back to Jonson.
This idea was first suggested by Gershon Legman.
The song is considered a rugby standard.
For full details, obviously, one must refer to Cray's book. - RBW
Last updated in version 3.4
File: ECray04

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