Cod-Liver Oil, The

Play recording: Cod-Liver Oil, The

view / hide recording details [+/-]

  • Teideal (Title): Cod-Liver Oil, The.
  • Uimhir Chatalóige Ollscoil Washington (University of Washington Catalogue Number): 781513.
  • Uimhir Chnuasach Bhéaloideas Éireann (National Folklore of Ireland Number): none.
  • Uimhir Roud (Roud Number): 4221.
  • Uimhir Laws (Laws Number): none.
  • Uimhir Child (Child Number): none.
  • Cnuasach (Collection): Joe Heaney Collection, University of Washington, Seattle.
  • Teanga na Croímhíre (Core-Item Language): English.
  • Catagóir (Category): song.
  • Ainm an té a thug (Name of Informant): Joe Heaney.
  • Ainm an té a thóg (Name of Collector): Cynthia Thiessen.
  • Dáta an taifeadta (Recording Date): 02/03/1978.
  • Suíomh an taifeadta (Recording Location): University of Washington, United States of America.
  • Ocáid an taifeadta (Recording Occasion): private.
  • Daoine eile a bhí i láthair (Others present): Fredric Lieberman.
  • Stádas chóipcheart an taifeadta (Recording copyright status): unavailable.

…This is about… a man, and his wife was getting weaker and weaker as the days went by, and he said he couldn’t see her disappearing like that, because he was used to be fond of her at one time. So he said he would go to the doctor and get her a bottle to cure her. And that’s the biggest mistake he ever made, because the bottle she got, she thrived, she grew strong, she was, in a week’s time she was throwing him all over the place. And this is what the poor divil said:

I’m a young married man, I am tired of me life
Ten years I’ve been wed to a sickly wife
She does nothing all day, only sit down and cry
Wishing to God, oh, that she would die.

A friend of me own came to see me one day
And he told me, me wife, she was pining away
He afterwards told me that she would get strong
If I bought her a bottle from young Doctor John.

I got her a bottle, oh, just for to try
And the way that she drank it, you’d swear she was dry
I got her another, it vanished the same
And now she’s all cod-liver oil on her brain.

She likes it so good now that there is no doubt
I own that my wife, she got terrible stout
And when she got stout, of course she got strong
And then I got jealous of dear Doctor John.

Oh doctor, dear doctor, oh dear Doctor John
Your cod-liver oil is so pure and strong
I’m afraid that me life will go down in the soil
If me wife don’t stop drinking your cod-liver oil.

My house it resembles a big doctor’s shop
It’s covered with bottles from bottom to top
And early in the morning when the kettle is boiled
You’d swear it was singing out, ‘Cod-liver oil.’

Oh doctor, oh doctor, oh dear Doctor John
Your cod-liver oil is so pure and so strong
I’m afraid that me life will go down in the soil
If me wife don’t stop drinking your cod-liver oil.