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I Had an Old Hoss

[ Roud 974 ; Ballad Index R414 ; Mudcat 128733 ; trad.]

Harry Cox sang I Had an Old Hoss to Mervyn Plunkett at home in Catfield, Norfolk, in September 1958. This recording was included in 2000 on his Topic anthology The Bonny Labouring Boy. Steve Roud noted:

Originating on the black-face minstrel stage, this song started life as Aunt Jemima’s Plaster or Bees Wax and was very popular in American songsters of the 1850s and 1860s, and many versions were noted by 20^th century collectors, from both white and black tradition. In Britain, the chorus turned up in odd places, such as a Lincolnshire version of the singing-game Push the Business On, a ‘polishing song’ noted by R.W. Patten on Exmoor, and a version of the sea shanty Do My Johnny Booker. The wording of Harry’s version is somewhat more robust than the earlier versions, but the imagery is very similar.

Bee’s Wax is sung as part of a medley on the Greentrax anthology of children’s songs and rhymes, Chokit on a Tattie (Scottish Tradition 22).

Lyrics

Harry Cox sings I Had an Old Hoss

I had an old hoss; he was such a kicker,
Put a plaster on his arse and made him kick the quicker.
It was all done with sheepskin, beeswax, tons of pitch and plaster,
The more I tried to pull it off, by God, it stuck the faster.

I had an old cat; he was such a thief, sir,
Put the plaster on his arse and drew out all his teeth, sir.
It was all done with sheepskin, beeswax, tons of pitch and plaster,
The more I tried to pull it off, by God, it stuck the faster.

I had a little wife; she weren’t very civil,
I put a plaster on her arse and drew her to the devil.
It was all done with sheepskin, beeswax, tons of pitch and plaster,
The more I tried to pull it off, by God, it stuck the faster.