Kate's Big Shirt

DESCRIPTION: Saturday night "Kate stopped up to iron her clothes" and "Tom stopped up for company." He asks "Kate does that big shirt belong to you?" It does. They strip and climb in the shirt together, but can't get out when they try. (They end up happily married.)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (Greig/Duncan2)
KEYWORDS: clothes bawdy humorous wordplay marriage
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf) Britain(Scotland(Aber)) US(MW)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greig/Duncan2 313, "The Shirt" (1 text)
Peacock, pp. 69-70, "Kate's Big Shirt" (1 text, 1 tune)
Grimes-StoriesFromTheAnneGrimesCollection, pp. 139-140, "The Big Shirt" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #5866
RECORDINGS:
George Decker, "Kate's Big Shirt" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "A Great Big Sea Hove in Long Beach" (tune)
NOTES [124 words]: Perhaps Greig/Duncan2 and Peacock should be split. Peacock's informant said his song, recorded in 1959, was local to Fortune (Newfoundland) and the tune makes that plausible. Given the Greig/Duncan2 text, which shares a story but few lines with Peacock, it seems to me more likely that Peacock is a badly remembered version recast into a familiar musical format. Greig/Duncan2 records no tune but the format would not fit "A Great Big Sea Hove in Long Beach." - BS
The version in Grimes-StoriesFromTheAnneGrimesCollection appears to go with Peacock, and gives a full version in which the girl's parents hear the young couple crashing around in the shirt and force them to marry. This might be an attempt to put a clean ending on a bawdy song. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.2
File: Pea069

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