![]() ![]() The earliest version of the song I’ve found, though, appeared in an 1810 edition of a book called Gammer Gurton’s Garland: Or, the Nursery Parnassus (“A choice collection of pretty songs and verses, for the amusement of all little good children who can neither read nor run”) there, although the “Rolling home” chorus doesn’t appear, the song’s title is recorded as “The Jolly Tester.” This would certainly would have been the case with the lyrics illustrated by lantern slide (dated “1920s-30s”) shown at the left, apparently from the collection of an Australian stage performer named Jack Hayward. In various versions I’ve encountered, the sometimes becomes soldier (in wartime, especially the two World Wars). This follows the “…as I go rolling home” line: We can find one clue to its age, and its purpose (or target audience) in each era, in the words of a sort of follow-on chorus which doesn’t always appear with the rest of the lyrics. Sometimes the coin in question isn’t a sixpence but a shilling the proportion and amount set aside for spending, lending, and taking (or sending) home vary as well. ![]() It’s been reworked and re-popularized in various ways over the decades. The origins of the song (like those of most non-commercial music) are a bit mysterious. For with each succeeding verse, the amount of cash on hand dwindles, and he must adjust his choices accordingly:Īnd tuppence to take home to my wife, poor wife…Īnd no pence to take home to my wife, poor wife… The one-verse version of the song misses the finely sharpened knifepoint of the entire song, though. A third for pleasure! a third to share! and a third, presumably, for expenses (managed by a loving - albeit poor - wife)! And if we’re still skeptical, he continues: So not only does he start out with mere pennies he looks forward to divvying his fortune up even further. How can this be? We look to the rest of the first verse:Īnd tuppence to send up to my wife (poor wife). Either way, whether you listen to the full-length cover or the foreshortened, you get hit with the message right there in the first two lines:Įven if we can’t think of a single item which now can be obtained for a mere six cents, we get the point: the guy carries a mere handful of change in his sweaty workingman’s palm… and is happy about it. ![]()
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