> Cyril Tawney > Songs > Five Foot Flirt
> Tony Rose > Songs > Five Foot Flirt

Five Foot Flirt

[ Roud - ; DT FLIRT5FT ; Mudcat 145689 ; Cyril Tawney]

According to the biography on Cyril Tawney’s website, he wrote Five Foot Flirt in 1950 as a British counterpart to Red Ingle’s American hit Cigareets and Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women (which was also sung by Martin Carthy in the ABC Sunday evening TV series Hallelujah hosted by Sydney Carter). Tawney’s own version can be found on the 1966 Elektra album A Cold Wind Blows, on his 1997 cassette of non-maritime songs, Man of Honour, on his 2003 CD Navy Cuts: The Songs of Cyril Tawney, and on his 2007 posthumous anthology The Song Goes On. Cyril Tawney noted on his cassette:

A mock-rustic ditty from the closing months of my Navy technical apprenticeship, very influenced by the contemporay American hit Cigareets and Whisky. It was going to be sung in an HMS “Collingwood” revue by a scratch group, Sheepdip Tawney and the Cowshed Cleaners, but the show itself was never staged and then we all passed out into the fleet. The song finally came into its own with the Folk Revival. My mum always called it Joviality.

Tony Rose sang Five Foot Flirt at the Cheltenham Folk Club in 1967. This recording was included on his posthumous CD Exe.

John Roberts and Tony Barrand sang Five Foot Flirt in 1975 on their album Mellow With Ale From the Horn.

Martin Watson and chorus sang Five Foot Flirt, which he learned “by accident, having heard it regularly at folk clubs, sessions and festival singarounds”, on the 2013 Kelham Island singing session CD Kelham Island Voices.

Lyrics

Cyril Tawney sings Five Foot Flirt

Now don’t say Jim Johnson weren’t with ’ee last night,
I heard him as plain as could be:
I was crossing the mound when I heard a strange sound
Down by the sycamore tree.
I thought perhaps a cow had got stuck in the mud
And pulled out her foot with a moo.
But I’m satisfied now that that noise weren’t a cow;
It was Jim kissing you.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
You’m a five foot flirt in the robes of an angel,
You better had leave I alone.
Why, the way you’re acting it nearly unnerves I,
The thing that preserves I is my joviality.
Though I’ve got trouble as thick as the stubble
’Tis you that’s the worst of them all.
Keep out of my track and if you want to come back
You can crawl, crawl, crawl.

Remember what happened last Saturday night,
The air was so peaceful and still.
Like a bulk from the blue came a hullabaloo,
A growling and a cackling so shrill.
It came to my head as I crawled from my bed;
There’s a fox at my chickens, that’s true.
I crept out in my socks and bumped into the fox,
It was Jim kissing you.

Now what’s your excuse for last Sunday in church,
It fair turned the poor vicar grey.
While the organist was rendering Lead Kindly Light
Jim Johnson kept pumping away.
Then all of a sudden the organ stopped short,
The vicar got into a stew.
When he went round behind tell me what did he find:
He found Jim kissing you.

Tony Rose sings Five Foot Flirt

Now don’t say Jim Johnson weren’t with ’ee last night,
I heard him as plain as could be:
I was crossing the mound when I heard a strange sound
Down by the sycamore tree.
I thought perhaps a cow had got stuck in the mud
And pulled out her foot with a moo.
But I’m satisfied now that that noise weren’t a cow;
It was Jim kissing you.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
You’m a five foot flirt in the robes of an angel,
You better had leave I alone.
Why, the way you’re acting it nearly unnerves I,
The thing that preserves I is my joviality.
Though I’ve got trouble as thick as the stubble
’Tis you that’s the worst of them all.
So get out of my track and if you want to come back
You can crawl, crawl, crawl.

Remember what happened last Saturday night,
The air was so peaceful and still.
When out of the blue came a hullabaloo
And a growling and a cackling so shrill.
It came to my head as I crawled out of bed;
There’s a fox at my chickens, that’s true.
I crept out in my socks and bumped into the fox,
It was Jim kissing you.

Remember what happened last Sunday in church,
It near turned the poor vicar grey.
While the organist was rendering Lead Kindly Light
Jim Johnson kept pumping away.
And all of a sudden the organ stopped short,
The vicar got into a stew.
When he went round behind tell me what did he find:
He found Jim kissing you.