My Old Man's a Dustman

"My Old Man's a Dustman"
Sleeve for the Scandinavian pressing on Metronome Records
Single by Lonnie Donegan
Released 16 March 1960
Format 45, 78
Recorded 20 February 1960, Gaumont Cinema, Doncaster
Genre Folk, music hall Pop
Length 3:21
Label PYE Records
Songwriter(s) Lonnie Donegan, Peter Buchanan, Beverly Thorn
Producer(s) Unknown
Lonnie Donegan singles chronology
"San Miguel"
(1959)		 "My Old Man's a Dustman"
(1960)		 "I Wanna Go Home"
(1960)

"My Old Man's a Dustman" is a song first recorded by the British skiffle singer Lonnie Donegan. It reached number one in the British, Irish, Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand singles charts in 1960. The chorus of the song is[1]:

Oh, my old man's a dustman
He wears a dustman's hat
He wears cor blimey trousers
And he lives in a council flat

Composition

The song was written by Lonnie Donegan, Peter Buchanan (Donegan's manager between 1956 and 1962[2]), and Beverly Thorn; Thorn was not credited on the original release. According to his autobiography, Beverley Thorn was a pseudonym of Leslie Bricusse, the songwriter who wrote hit shows with Anthony Newley.[3]

It probably has its origins in "My Father Was a Fireman", a song sung by British World War I troops. The two songs share a lyrical similarity in their reference to "gorblimey trousers".[4] A song beginning with the line "My old man's a dustman", but otherwise sharing no lyrics with Donegan's, is recorded as a playground song in the 1956 novel My Old Man's a Dustman by Wolf Mankowitz. This song tells of the exploits of the protagonist at the Battle of Mons.[5] A version concerning a football game and beginning "My old man's a scaffie [dustman or street-sweeper, from scavenger][6]/He wears a scaffie's hat" (echoing the first two lines of Donegan's song) is recorded as a Scottish playground song during the 1950s.[7] A very similar song, beginning "My old man's a baker", is recorded in Chester-le-Street in 1967.[8] All of these songs share the same metric structure.

The melody is borrowed from Stravinsky's Petrushka.

The song represented a change in style for Donegan, away from American folk and towards British music hall.[9]

Single release

On 16 March 1960, through Pye Records in the UK, Donegan released a version of the song recorded live at the Gaumont cinema in Doncaster just a few weeks earlier, on 20 February.[10] The B-side was a version of the English folk song "The Golden Vanity". The single reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 31 March and maintained that position for four weeks.[11] It also reached number one in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and on the Canadian CHUM Chart, selling over a million copies in total.[12][13]

Cover versions

In 1960, a Dutch version was released by Toby Rix. The song was performed by the Bee Gees on the Australian TV show Bandstand in 1963. Also in 1963, a parody version, "My Old Man's An All-Black", was released in New Zealand by the Howard Morrison Quartet[14] and, in the US, the Smothers Brothers included a parody based on the song on their LP Think Ethnic. In 1966, The Irish Rovers included a version of the song on their LP The First of the Irish Rovers.

A version titled "My Old Man's a Provo" became one of the most popular Irish republican rebel folk songs in the latter part of the twentieth century.[15]

References

  1. ↑ "My Old Man's a Dustman". www.lyrics.com. Retrieved 25 June 2018.
  2. ↑ Death of Norfolk man who penned My Old Man's A Dustman. Dereham Times 25 August 2010.
  3. ↑ "musicaltheatrereview.com Interview with Leslie Bricusse".
  4. ↑ Howse, Christopher (9 August 2009). "He wears a gorblimey hat". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 August 2009. Retrieved 20 June 2017 – via Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ Wolf Mankowitz (1956) My Old Man's a Dustman. London: André Deutsch. p. 49 [
  6. ↑ Robinson, Mairi, ed. (1987). The Concise Scots Dictionary. Aberdeen University Press. p. 583. ISBN 0080284922.
  7. ↑ James T. R. Ritchie (1964) The Singing Street. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. p. 127.
  8. ↑ Frank Rutherford (1971) All the Way to Pennywell. Durham, UK: University of Durham Institute of Education. p. 96.
  9. ↑ Lonnie Donegan obituary. The Telegraph 5 November 2002
  10. ↑ Rice, Jo (1982). The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits (1st ed.). Enfield, Middlesex: Guinness Superlatives Ltd. pp. 49–50. ISBN 0-85112-250-7.
  11. ↑ Results for "Lonnie Donegan". The Official Chart Company.
  12. ↑ British Newsnotes. Billboard 5 September 1960.
  13. ↑ CHUM Chart number one hits 1960-1965. CHUM memorial blog.
  14. ↑ Controversial is hit route. Billboard 5 October 1963.
  15. ↑ Mark Boyle (2011) Routes to Roots. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing. p. 163.
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