> Martin Carthy > Songs > Your Baby 'as Gorn Dahn the Plug'ole

Your Baby 'as Gorn Dahn the Plug'ole

[Jack Spade (pseudonym of Elton Box, Desmond Cox and Lewis Ilda (Irwin Dash)]

In May 1963, Decca gathered together London folkies for an all-night “hootenanny” in the studios which resulted in the LP Hootenanny in London and the EP The Thamesiders and Davy Graham. On the LP, Martin Carthy made his first solo recording singing this song, later revived by Cream, and Girls. Martin also sang End of Me Old Cigar in a duet with Redd Sullivan.

Lyrics

Now a mother was bathing her baby,
Bathing her baby one night.
The mother was fat and the baby was thin,
Just like a skelington covered with skin.

She only turned round for a minute,
To fetch oh some sope from the rack,
She only turned round for a minute,
But oh, when she turned back.

Why, the baby had utterly vanished,
A-vanished completely away.
Oh where, oh where is my baby?
And she heard an angel say:

Madam, your baby has gone down the plughole,
Your baby has gone down the plug.
The poor little thing was so skinny and thin,
It should have been washed in a jug.

Your baby is perfectly happy,
He won't need no bathing no more.
Your baby has gone down the plughole
Not lost, just gone before!

Acknowledgements

These Cockney lyrics were found at the Online Dictionary of Playground Slang. I adapted them to the actual singing of Martin Carthy.