Lloyd George Knew My Father (song)

"Lloyd George Knew My Father" is a 20th-century English schoolboy folk song. The simple lyrics consist of the phrase "Lloyd George knew my father/Father knew Lloyd George"[1][2] sung to the tune "Onward, Christian Soldiers".[A] In the song, the two lines referring to Lloyd George are repeated incessantly, until boredom sets in.[3] There are no lyrics other than those two lines.

The origin of the song is not known[4] but there are several theories, one that it began as a music hall song making an oblique reference to David Lloyd George's supposed womanizing proclivities[4][5] (with the right timing and intonation and a well-placed wink, "father" could be taken to mean "mother", and "knew" in the biblical sense of sexual relations). The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations attributes the song to Tommy Rhys Roberts QC, the son of a former law partner of Lloyd George.[4] According to David Owen, it was a World War I marching song.[4]

Notes
  1. ^
    Arthur Sullivan's version of the tune. (Sabine Baring-Gould had written the hymn in 1865 but had used a theme from the andante movement of Joseph Haydn's Symphony 53 in D major as the music. Sullivan composed a new tune (which he named "Saint Gertrude") in 1871 to go with Baring-Gould's lyrics, and it is this version which is commonly used since.[6]

References
  1. "Wee Sing Lyrics: Lloyd George Knew My Father". Lyrics Time. Archived from the original on 2014-02-22. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
  2. Taylor, A. J. P. (1965). English History 1914–1945. Oxford University Press. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-19-821715-2. Archived from the original on 2012-03-22. Retrieved 2019-11-21.
  3. Lucas Miller (March 16, 2009). "William Douglas Home's Lloyd George Knew My Father". Berkshire Review. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  4. "Lloyd George knew my father....but what's the origin of the famous song?". Lloyd George Society. January 31, 2009. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  5. "Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd". Wales Directory. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  6. Jack Boyd, ed. (1986). Great Songs of the Church, Revised. Abilene, Texas: ACU Press., No. 412.
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