Songs of Uncertain Authorship

Did Fred Godfrey also have a hand in writing these great hits?

My Girl’s A Yorkshire Girl (Ee, By Gum, She’s A Champion)	She’s A Lassie From Lancashire	Ship Ahoy! (All The Nice Girls Love A Sailor)	When Father Papered The Parlour
Listen to a 1909 recording by Harry Fay, as “Herbert Forman”	Listen to Florrie Forde’s 1932 reprise of her great 1907 hit	Listen to Ella Retford sing Ship Ahoy! in a 1930 medley of hits	Listen to a 1911 recording by Billy Williams for Beka Grand (from a 1913 reissue on Albion)

Fred Godfrey laid claim to several well-known songs of the Music Hall era for which he is never credited. Reproduced here is a postcard Godfrey gave to his grandson Peter sometime in the 1940s on which he printed in his own hand the names of some of his big hits as he remembered them, including the four great hits featured above. Every published obituary of Godfrey lists Ship Ahoy! (All The Nice Girls Love A Sailor) among his successes, but somehow the published credit goes to his frequent collaborators A.J. Mills and Bennett Scott — indeed, some recording credits mention Scott alone. Surely, with so many hits already under his belt, Godfrey had no need to pad his resumé; all the writers spent hours crowding around a piano working out songs, and afterward who knew who did what? The true story may never be known.

Fred Godfrey is also sometimes credited for a few songs with which he may not actually be connected. Confusion also occasionally arises due to the existence of an earlier Adolphus Frederick Godfrey (1837–82), a composer and arranger of more serious musical works, usually brass band pieces, whose name is often shortened to “Fred. Godfrey.” In the 1980s I obtained, with much satisfaction, a gloriously coloured and expensively printed sheet music cover of an uncharacteristically serious work of the early 1900s bearing Fred Godfrey’s name, but it wasn’t my Fred Godfrey. To give him his credit, though, bands are still playing the other Fred Godfrey’s compositions and arrangements to this day, a legacy nearly a century and a half old — so, good on yer, Fred!

Here, then, are the “problematic” songs.

As The Years Roll On
Fred Godfrey as “Godfrey Williams” — London: Leonard & Co., 1901 [this may be an error, as no other Godfrey songs are known from this early date].

I Kissed Your Two Lips Among The Tulips
Authorship uncertain: British Library lists only as “G. Williams”; it is either Lawrence Wright as “Gene Williams” or Fred Godfrey as “Godfrey Williams”, 1926.

I Must Go Home Tonight
William Hargreaves [Andrews and Bayly 1982]; Billy Williams’s widow Amy Jennings credits Williams and Godfrey in an interview with Peter Burgis of the National Film & Sound Archive, Canberra, but her recollections are considered to be of questionable accuracy — Melbourne: Stanley Mullen, 1909.

Kitty, The Telephone Girl
Alf. J. Lawrance, Harry Gifford, Huntley Trevor & Tom Mellor, 1915; some sources credit Fred Godfrey instead of Lawrance.

My Girl’s A Yorkshire Girl (Ee, By Gum, She’s A Champion)
C.W. Murphy & Dan Lipton [British Library and sheet music]; claimed by Fred Godfrey — London: Francis, Day & Hunter; Melbourne: Stanley Mullen, 1908.

My Son John’s Just Like His Father
D.F. Godfrey, 1923 [British Library]; a different Godfrey?

Postcards
William Hargreaves & Billy Williams, 1908 [Andrews and Bayly 1982]; Cinch record label credits Fred Godfrey & Williams; the great majority of Billy Williams’s songs reissued on Cinch were indeed by Williams and Godfrey, so the label may have made a mistake; the song is not mentioned in any of the numerous letters in which Godfrey assigns his rights to Williams.

She’s A Lassie From Lancashire
C.W. Murphy, Dan Lipton & John Neat; claimed by Fred Godfrey — London: Bert Feldman; Melbourne: Stanley Mullen, 1907. A great hit for Florrie Forde, for whom Godfrey wrote many songs. Godfrey was writing a lot of songs with John Neat in 1907; did this one fall somehow through the cracks?

Ship Ahoy! (All The Nice Girls Love A Sailor)
A.J. Mills & Bennett Scott; claimed by Fred Godfrey; British Library credits Scott alone — London: Bert Feldman; Melbourne: Stanley Mullen; New York: Nove Music, 1908. Both Ella Retford , for whom Godfrey wrote some of her biggest hits, and the great male impersonator Hetty King made this song a huge success. As noted above, Godfrey, Mills, and Scott were frequent collaborators.

When Father Papered The Parlour
R.P. Weston & Fred J. Barnes; some sources credit Billy Williams & Weston; Music Hall historian Peter Gammond (1975, 68) credits “Weston, ______another staff writer & Barnes”; claimed by Fred Godfrey [the other “staff writer”?] — London: Bert Feldman; London: Francis, Day & Hunter, 1910. It might seem a bit odd, considering the large number of songs that Fred Godfrey wrote for Billy Williams (indeed, all of Billy’s songs in the last three or four years of his life), that Billy’s greatest success by far was not one of them. Perhaps, given the many songs involved, Godfrey was confused about what he had contributed. Written corrections to a typed version of the lyrics in the Billy Williams Collection held by the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, Australia, are not in Godfrey’s hand.