Get Hold of This (When There Isn't a Girl About)

DESCRIPTION: "Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet... There came a spider, sat down beside her, Whipped his old bazooka out," and begs, "Get hold of this... When there isn't a girl you feel so lonely..." Various tales of how men satisfy themselves without women
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1979 (Hopkins)
KEYWORDS: soldier sex bawdy nonballad derivative | spider bazooka
FOUND IN: Canada Britain(England(Lond))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear, pp. 156-157, "Get Hold of This" (1 text, 1 tune)
Howson-SongsSunginSuffolk, #14, "When There Isn't a Girl About" (1 text)
cf. FolkSongAndMusicHall, "When there isn't a girl about"
Roud #10708
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Little Miss Muffet" (lyrics)
cf. "Little Jack Horner" (lyrics)
cf. "Poor Old Robinson Crusoe" (lyrics)
NOTES [265 words]: This is clearly a parody of the 1906 song "When There Isn't a Girl About" by Harry Castling and Charles Collins, which is proclaimed by its sheet must to have been sung by Arthur Reese. But that song is clean, and this version is substantially altered -- enough so that I consider it a separate song though it appears Steve Roud lumps them.
This parody is clearly from World War II, since all versions seem to be based on someone whipp(ing) "his old bazooka out." The bazooka was an American anti-tank weapon, a long tube which fired a rocket projectile. It's pretty clear why it would be compared to the male apparatus, since it was long and thin and emitted something at the end.
The flip side is, the bazooka was a flop -- every reference I've seen says that it was inferior to the hand-held anti-tank weapons used by both British and Germans. It simply could not penetrate the frontal armor of any German tank in service by the time bazookas became common. Soldiers had to aim it at a tank's tracks or some other weak spot, which was a lot harder than hitting it head-on. The high command apparently never caught on and came up with a usable weapon (there were still bazookas in use after the war!), but the soldiers knew better.
The bazooka derived its nickname from the "Bazooka Joe" comic strip and associated gum. There are actually books about it, e.g. Gordon L. Rottman, The Bazooka and Terry Gander, The Bazooka: Hand Held Hollow Charge Anti Tank Weapons. And then there is Anthony Lewis, Bazooka: How to Build Your Own. That sounds rather in the spirit of this song.... - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: Hopk156

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