This Cyril Tawney song is heavy in British Navy colloquialisms.
- Chicken on a raft: fried egg on toast, a tiresome, unpopular meal
- Jimmy: Jimmy-the-One, i.e. the first lieutenant
- Comic cuts: orders (from the WWI British Army jargon for Divisional Orders)
- Dabtoes: general able-bodied seamen
- Dustmen: engine room specialists, usually stokers
- Laugh like a drain: a UK phrase from around the time of WWII describing coarse, loud laughter at the discomfort of others.
- Middle & forenoon: two separate watch periods
- Pusser: purser, a notoriously frugal role
Tawney served in the navy for thirteen years, often aboard submarines.
This song was recorded as early as 1967 by The Young Tradition (Peter Bellamy, Royston Wood, and Heather Wood). Tawney recorded it for the 1990 album Sally Free and Easy. An easy-to-remember website has looped the song for prolonged enjoyment over the years.
Image from chickenonaraft.com
Direct link:
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Skipper in the wardroom drinking gin,
Ch: Hey-o, chicken on a raft!
I don't mind knocking, but I ain't a-going in!
Ch: Hey-o, chicken on a raft!
Jimmy's laughing like a drain,
Ch: Hey-o, chicken on a raft!
Been lookin' at my comic cuts again,
Ch: Hey-o, chicken on a raft!
Chicken on a raft on a Monday morning,
Oh, what a terrible sight to see,
Dabtoes forrard and the dustmen aft,
Sittin' there a-pickin' at a chicken on a raft!
Hey-o, chicken on a raft!
Oy-o, chicken on a raft!
Hey-o, chicken on a raft!
Oy-o, chicken on a raft!
They gave me the middle and the forenoon too,
Now I'm pullin' in a whaler's crew.
There's a seagull wheelin' overhead,
Oh to be floatin' in a feather bed!
We kissed goodbye on the midnight bus
She didn't cry, she didn't fuss.
Am I the one that she loves best
Or am I just a cuckoo in another man's nest?
An Amazon girl lived in Dumfries,
She only had her kids in twos and threes;
Her sister lives in Maryhill,
She says she won't but I think she will!
I had another girl in Donny B
And did she make a fool of me.
Her heart was like a pusser's shower,
From hot to cold in a quarter of an hour!
By Cyril Tawney