Cod Liver Oil

DESCRIPTION: Singer complains of having married a sickly wife. After he introduces her to cod liver oil, she goes wild for it, demanding it all the time. He warns young men to avoid sickly women, or they'll "end up a-swimmin' in cod liver oil!"
AUTHOR: possibly Johnny Burke (1851-1930)
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland)
KEYWORDS: disease marriage medicine humorous doctor
FOUND IN: US Ireland Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland 155, "Cod Liver Oil Song" (1 text)
Peacock, pp. 48-49, "Cod-Liver Oil" (1 text, 1 tune)
Blondahl-NewfoundlandersSing, p. 28, "Cod-Liver Oil" (1 text, 1 tune)
OLochlainn-MoreIrishStreetBallads 30, "The Cod Liver Oil" (1 text, 1 tune)
Stewart/Belle-Stewart-QueenAmangTheHeather, pp. 77-78, "Cod Liver Oil" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-OurSingingCountry, pp. 116-117, "Cod Liver Ile" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 169 "Cod Liver Oil" (1 text)
DT, CODLIVR*
ADDITIONAL: Johnny Burke, _Burke's Popular Songs_, self-published, 1929 (a PDF is available on the Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. [13], "If Your Wife Is Run Down, GIve Her Cod Liver Oil" (1 text)
Johnny Burke (John White, Editor), _Burke's Ballads_, no printer listed, n.d. (PDF available on Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. 18, "If Your Wife Is Run Down, Give Her Cod Liver Oil" (1 text)
Johnny Burke (William J. Kirwin, editor), _John White's Collection of Johnny Burke Songs_, Harry Cuff Publications, St. John's, 1981, #61, pp. 97, "If Your Wife Is Run Down, Give Her Cod Liver Oil" (1 text)
Roud #4221
RECORDINGS:
Omar Blondahl, "Cod Liver Oil Song" (on NFOBlondahl02); "Cod Liver Oil" (on NFOBlondahl03)
Flanagan Brothers, "Cod Liver Oil" (Vocalion 84010, n.d.)
Jack Myrick, "Cod Liver Oil" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth b.34(89), "Dr. de Jongh's Cod Liver Oil ," unknown, n.d.
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Fair Do" (tune)
cf. "The Quilty Burning" (tune)
cf. "The Half Crown" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
When Your Old Woman Takes a Cramp in Her Craw Give Her Cod Liver Oil (by Johnny Burke) (Johnny Burke (John White, Editor), _Burke's Ballads_, no printer listed, n.d. (PDF available on Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. 17) (Johnny Burke (William J. Kirwin, editor), _John White's Collection of Johnny Burke Songs_, Harry Cuff Publications, St. John's, 1981, #62, pp. 99-100) (Johnny Burke, _Burke's Popular Songs_, self-published, 1929 (a PDF is available on the Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. [8])
Three Bottles a Week (by Johnny Burke) (Johnny Burke (William J. Kirwin, editor), _John White's Collection of Johnny Burke Songs_, Harry Cuff Publications, St. John's, 1981, #65, pp. 103-104) (Johnny Burke, _Burke's Popular Songs_, self-published, 1929 (a PDF is available on the Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. [21]) (Johnny Burke (John White, Editor), _Burke's Ballads_, no printer listed, n.d. (PDF available on Memorial University of Newfoundland web site), p. 47)
NOTES [373 words]: Cod liver oil, which contains Vitamin D in quantity, was touted as a cure-all in the 19th and early 20th centuries -- indeed, it was still being given to gagging children when I was growing up in the 1950s. - PJS
The theme is not very different from that of "The Dumb Wife" [Laws Q5], in which a man, to his eventual sorrow, goes to a doctor -- sometimes named John -- to cure his otherwise perfect wife of her inability to speak.
Newfoundland authorship attribution is not always to be treated as gospel. Blondahl-NewfoundlandersSing notes "there are several popular versions of Cod-Liver Oil, the original to be credited to John Burke." Burke (1851-1930) is a very well known author of songs in Newfoundland. In Blondahl-NewfoundlandersSing's version the potion comes from "dear Doctor John" and not Doctor de [or D.E.] Jongh. If Burke is indeed the author his work made its way to Ireland. - BS
I am not confident of the attribution to Burke, either, but he is not a bad possibility; Newfoundlanders were naturally deeply concerned with cod, including its oil. And Burke's best work was humorous material of this sort. I also note that he produced a sequel or rewrite. He did that at least one other time as well (with "Trinity Cake").
Also, Burke might have had a motive: Gerald S. Doyle, of the Doyle songsters, processed and sold cod liver oil (DictNewfLabrador, p. 87). So Doyle might have wanted something to promote it -- or Burke might have wanted to spoof Doyle's business.
The Newfoundland versions seem to be Burke-based (e.g. Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland's text has the "doctor, Dear John" error), but Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland list a bunch of songsters that printed the song in the 1870s or so -- a time when Burke was alive but not yet well known as a writer. Curiously, I can find no hint that any of those four songsters ever existed.
Also curious is the fact that Newfoundlanders did not always refer to this product as "cod liver oil." Sometimes it was "cod blubber," although the exact scope of that term seems to have varied, or simply "cod oil" (StoryKirwinWiddowson, p. 105).
For a brief biography of Johnny Burke, see the notes to "The Kelligrew's Soiree." - RBW
Bibliography

DictNewfLabrador: (Robert H. Cuff, managing editor), Dictionary of Newfoundland and Labrador Biography, Harry Cuff Publications, 1990
StoryKirwinWiddowson: G. M. Story, W. J. Kirwin, and J. D. A. Widdowson, editors, Dictionary of Newfoundland English, second edition with supplement, Breakwater Press, 1990

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