Don't Dilly Dally on the Way

DESCRIPTION: "My old man said follow the van, and don't dilly dally on the way. Off went the van wiv me 'ome packed in it... But I dillied, I dallied, I dallied and I dillied, lost me way and don't know where to roam....."
AUTHOR: Fred W. Leigh and Charles Collins (source: FolkSongAndMusicHall)
EARLIEST DATE: 1919 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: travel home police
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
LibraryThingCampSongsThread, post 78, "(My Old Man Said Follow the Van)" (1 short text, from user John5918, posted September 19, 2021)
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "Don't dillydally on the way"
ST LTCSDDDW (Partial)
Roud #32460
RECORDINGS:
Marie Lloyd, "Don't Dilly Dally on the Way" (Regal G7076, 1919?)
NOTES [112 words]: According to Richard Anthony Baker, British Music Hall: An Illustrated History, 2014 (I use the 2020 Pen & Sword paperback edition), p. 31, this was a vehicle for the great Music Hall singer Marie Lloyd. Lloyd had had her greatest success in the nineteenth century, but two of her three husbands were abusive, and she had ended up having a nervous breakdown. Baker says that this was her first big success after the breakdown. It wasn't as big as some of the songs she had sung earlier, which makes it interesting that it's one of the few to have survived in oral tradition. I wonder if that's due to the fact that she recorded it about the time she first sang it. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: LTCSDDDW

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