Billy Williams & Fred Godfrey, 1911; manuscript of lyrics in Billy Williams Collection, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, Australia.
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[T]he old, old story...of the Gentleman who, after dining not wisely but too well, steadies himself against a lamp-post and, with his latch key “En Garde”, waits until the key-hole of his residence bulks before him at the psychological moment when he can insert same into its innermost recesses....[A] record worthy of even Mr. Billy’s reputation. (Advertising copy for Edison Standard Cylinder, quoted in Andrews and Bayly 1982, 51.)
Recordings
Billy Williams recorded four versions of this song: 26 January 1912 for
Zonophone; ca. March 1912 for Pathé; ca. March 1912 for Edison
Standard Cylinder; and ca. November 1912 for Homophon. Reissues appeared
on several other labels.1
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Note
1 For comprehensive discographies of recordings by Billy Williams, see Brian Rust,
British Music Hall on Record (Harrow, UK: Gramophone, 1979); and Frank
Andrews and Ernie Bayly, Billy Williams’ Records: A Study in Discography
(Bournemouth, UK: Talking Machine Review, 1982). For a collection of recordings of
all the Billy Williams songs, see J.P. Myerscough, Billy Williams: All the Songs
[8-CD
set and accompanying notes] (Lowestoft, UK: Music Hall Masters, 2001). |