Ain't It Grand to Be Bloomin' Well Dead!

DESCRIPTION: Originally opened with a singer's dream of being dead. "Lately there's nothing but trouble, grief and strife." What survives today is the later verses: "And look at the corfin (coffin), bloomin' great 'andles... Ain't it grand, to be bloomin' well dead!"
AUTHOR: Leslie Sarony (source: FolkSongAndMusicHall), but heavily modified by later performers
EARLIEST DATE: 1932 (recording, Leslie Sarony)
KEYWORDS: death funeral humorous | coffin
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "Ain't It Grand to Be Bloomin' Well Dead!"
DT, ISNTGRND ISNTGRN2*
Roud #31292
NOTES [112 words]: The original of this, by Leslie Sarony, was in multiple parts, including a bit where Sarony asks,
Where oh where has our Leslie gone?
Oh where oh where can he be?
He promised to be on the other side.
Ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee!
The full version seems to have had very little traditional hold -- though the song was quickly adapted, without permission, by other performers. The "Where has Leslie gone" bit, and the dream sequence that began the song, has been largely forgotten; what is left (as sung by the Clancy Brothers and apparently by a lot of kids at camps and the like) is the various sequences "Look at the coffin," "Look at the mourners," "Look at the preacher." - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: FSMAIGTB

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