Cove Vot Spouts, The

DESCRIPTION: I am the cove what spouts" (person who talks). He sees a Shakespeare play, gets drunk and is arrested. Spouting Shakespeare lines earns him 30 days in a New York City jail
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1860 (broadside LOC, John Andrews)
LONG DESCRIPTION: "I am the cove what spouts." He sees "Richard III," then gets drunk in a tavern and orders "another horse." He is taken to the station house, sleeps it off, grabs someone by the nose and spouts, "Give me my pound of flesh." The victim calls for help for his bloody nose. "Blood, blood, Iago" spouts the singer like Iago. Then he clouts a policeman, spouting "Come on, come on, MacDuff." Other police come and wrestle the cove down. "Lay me in the grave with Juliet," he spouts. He is tried next day before the mayor and, when asked his name, quotes Hamlet to his honor, "I am my murdered father's ghost." The mayor assumes the singer is "surely crazed ... not safe to let him out" and gives him thirty days.
KEYWORDS: violence prison punishment trial drink humorous police
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Frank-JollySailorsBold 114, "The Cove Wot Spouts" (1 text)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #402, p. 27, "The Cove Wot Spouts" (2 references)
Roud #31338
BROADSIDES:
LOC,"The Cove Vot Spouts" ("I will tell you in my song what happened the other night"), John Andrews (New York), 1853-59 @ https://www.loc.gov/resource/amss.as102500/
SAME TUNE:
Jimmy You're Wrong ("Of course you all know me, So if you will attend") (BillyHolmesComicLocalLyrics, p. 8)
On the Brain ("All people, both young and old, Have got a hobby to ride") (by Billy Holmes) (BillyHolmesComicLocalLyrics, p. 44)
NOTES [148 words]: Broadside LOC: John Andrews dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site.
The John Andrews broadside is headed, "as sung by Mr. J.H. Briest." I assume the song was sung in what was supposed to be some European dialect. - BS
It looks like stage Dutch (=German) to me.
There don't seem to be many records of this being performed, but the one I found appears to be a concert program for July 1863 in Savannah, Georgia, featuring "Harry Macarthy and Miss Lottie Estelle In Their Grand Personation Concert." Macarthy was the author of "The Bonnie Blue Flag." I wonder if he didn't write this also.
Also, there seems to have been a series of broadsides, "The Cove Wot Has Seen Better Days," "The Cove Wot Sings," "The Cove Wot Spouts." I have no idea if they are by the same author. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: FJSB114

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