> Folk Music > Songs > Germany Clockmaker

Germany Clockmaker / The German Clockmender

[ Roud 241 ; Ballad Index K201 ; DT CLOKWIND , CLOKWIN2 ; Mudcat 8214 ; trad.]

J.N. Healy: Ballads From the Pubs of Ireland

Charlie Wills from Somerset sang Germany Clockmaker at the age of 93 in January 1971 to Bill Leader. This recording was released a year later on his eponymous Leader album Charlie Wills. The album’s notes commented:

There appear to be only two other published versions of the Germany Clockmaker, in Folk Song Today No. 3 and J.N. Healy, Ballads From the Pubs of Ireland (Cork: Mercier Press, 1965). There are no recorded versions on disc, but the song compares very closely with The German Musicianer on Harry Cox’s album English Love Songs.

George Spicer sang The German Clockmender at home in Selsfield, West Hoathly, Sussex in 1974. This recording made by Mike Yates was released in the same year on Spicer’s Topic album of traditional songs and ballads, Blackberry Fold, and was included in 2015 on the Musical Traditions anthology of songs and recitations from the Mike Yates collection, I Wish There Was No Prisons. Mike Yates noted on the first album:

In the folk repertoire, certain nationalities carry a stereotype image. The Scots are well known for their meanness and the Irish are likewise drunken fools. In a group of songs, which includes The German Musicianer as sung by the late Harry Cox, we find the Germans being characterised in a different role! As George says, “It’s a song that you can take either way.”

Mike Harding sang The German Clockwinder in 1972 on his Trailer album A Lancashire Lad. He noted:

The horological giglio who is the hero of this somewhat Decameronesque tale has his European counterpart in an epic Ukrainian ballad The One-eyed Commode Maker which in turn may be traced back to an Indian epic tale from the Bhagavad Ghita. One may wonder how this pre-christian Indian tale found its way to industrial Lancashire in the 1970s. The last clockwinder in England was run over by a Spanish onion seller’s bike during the Rose of Clackheaton Festival of 1921.

Paul and Linda Adams sang The German Clockwinder in 1975 on their Sweet Folk and Country of songs and ballads of Cumbria, Far Over the Fell.

Bill Smith sang An Old German Clockmaker in a 1980 recording was was included in 2011, amended by verses 2, most of 3 and 5-6 from Albert Shaw of Staffordshire, on his Musical Traditions anthology of “songs and stories of a Shropshire Man”, A Country Life. Ros Stradling noted:

Verses in italics are from the singing of Albert Shaw of Staffordshire.

Although we think of this as a popular song amongst the revival, it wasn’t much taken up by the oral tradition, with only nine examples in Roud. Essentially, it’s the same song as The Old German Musicianer (Roud 17774), and that only has seven entries!

Bill House of Beaminster, Dorset sang I Am a Von German to Nick and Mally Dow on 12 April 1985. This recording was released in the same year on the Old House cassette anthology of traditional folksongs collected by Nick and Mally Dow, Gin and Ale and Whisky.

Will Noble sang The German Clockmender on The Holme Valley Tradition’s 1985 Hill &Dale album Bright Rosy Morning. The album’s notes commented:

Will: “Audience didn’t think I’d dare to sing it on the record. They thought it were a bit cheeky but I don’t think it is at all. There’s only a bit of fun. It were one song that I always asked Arthur [Howard] to sing. That’s why I like it so much.”

Charlie Wills sings a version from Dorset on Leader LEA4041, where he uggests that it poked fun at the music of the German-style (‘oompah-pah’) bands, popular in Victorian England.

Jim Causley sang Germany Clockmaker in 2011 on his WildGoose album of Devon songs, Dumnonia, referring in his liner notes to Charlie Will’s “extremely cheeky rendition”.

Lyrics

Charlie Wills sings Germany Clockmaker

A Germany clockmaker to England once came
Any old clocks or watches he’d mend.
He’d put them to right nine times out of ten
With his too-re-lum, toodle-um, too-re-lum-day.

Chorus (after each verse):
With his too-re-lum, toodle-um, too-re-lum-day
Too-re-lum, toodle-um, too-re-lum-day

He met a young lady in Tenonsbury Square,
She told him her clock was in want of repair.
He followed her home to the lady’s delight,
In about five minutes he had her clock right.

They sat down to tea and to loving they got,
All of a sudden to hear a loud knock.
In walked her husband with a hell of a shock
To see this young German winding up his wife’s clock.

He got him hold by the back of his neck,
He shaked him about till his teeth fall out.
He made him promise no more in his life
He’d wind up the clock or another man’s wife.

George Spicer sings The German Clockmender

A German clock-maker to London once came
Herman von Tick was this proud German’s name
All round the town on his way he would trend
Shouting aloud, “Any clocks for to mend”

Chorus:
With his toodle-li-oodle, li-oddle, li-ay
Toodle-li-oodle, li-oddle, li-ay

This German was handsome, the lady’s delight
All of them wanted their clocks to go right
Some were too fast and others too slow
But nine out of ten he would makes their clocks go

He once met a lady in Queenberry Square
Who said that her clock was in need of repair
She invited him home, that very same night
And in less than ten minutes he put her clock right

She invited him home that night to take stock
When all of a sudden there came a loud knock
And in walked her husband and oh what a shock
For he caught that young German a-winding her clock

Then out spaked the husband to his wife Mary-Ann
“Why is it, my dear, you engage a strange man?
To wind up your clock and leave me on the shelf
If your clock wants winding I’ll wind it myself”

Bill Smith [and Albert Shaw] sing An Old German Clockmaker

An old German clockmaker to England once came
Benjamin Snooks was that old German’s name
Round the town with his wares to sell
Clocks to mend he would ring on his bell

Chorus:
With his too ral aye ay
Too ral aye ay
Too ral aye, too ral aye, too ral aye ay

Now this German was handsome to the ladies delight
He was often invited to put their clocks right
Some was too fast, others too slow
Nine times out of ten he would make ’em all go

He met a young lady in Finsbury Square
She told him her clock was in need of repair
Invited him round and to her great delight
In less than ten minutes he’d put her clock right

One day that old German was winding a clock
All of a sudden he heard a loud knock
In walked the husband and great was the shock
To see that old German winding up his wife’s clock

The husband said, ’wife; my dear Mary Ann
Why is it you always invite this strange man
To wind up your clock and leave me on the shelf
If your clock needs winding I’ll wind it myself

Come all you young fellows, take warning by me
If the German clockmaker you happen to see
Take hold of your lassie as firm as a rock
If you leave her behind he’ll be winding her clock