Still Going Strong

Poststructural Pub
1

Here’s a song for our wives to sing to us. Pete Mundy from Grimsby wrote this one after overhearing two old dears chatting on a bus.

TAKE YOUR TIME

  1. You first wound my clock up on our wedding day
    You said it would always be striking
    Though the spring’s getting weaker and feeble the tick
    It’s still very much to me liking.

Chorus
So take your time, me lovely old lad
There ain’t no need for to hurry
For as long as you’re able to wind up me clock
Then I have no reason to worry.

  1. I mind the time when we were young
    You worked at the hedging and binding
    You’d go out at dawn and come home through the dusk
    Coming home for me clock to be winding.

  2. As time went by, our children grew up
    Were soon making wedding vows binding
    And all of my daughters the same thing I taught
    Make sure your clock always needs winding.

  3. And now that we’re nearing the end of our time
    And you are so tired and grey, love
    It still pleases me when you wind up me clock
    And it will till the end of my days, love.

2

That’s lovely, John, just lovely!

3

:cry:

4

How common is this clock-winding/labido analogy? One of my favorite
subtly baudy Renn Faire songs involves this imagery (but in a less
manogomous way):

  • A German clock winder to Dublin once came
    Benjamin Fuchs was the old German’s name
    And as he was winding his way round the Strand
    He played on his flute and the music was grand
  • CHORUS
    Too-ralam-lama, Too-ralam-lama, Too-ra-ly-ay,
    Ay toodalum, ay toodalum in the old fashioned way.
    Too-ralam-lama, Too-ralam-lama, Too-ra-ly-ay,
    Well I winds 'em by night and I mends 'em by day.
    Now, there was a young lady from Grosvenor Square
    Who said that her clock was in need of repair
    In walks the bold German, and to her delight
    In less than five minutes he had her clock right

Now as they were seated down on the floor
There came this very loud knock on the door
In walks her husband and great was his shock
For to see the old German wind up his wife’s clock

The husband says he, “Look here, Mary-Ann,
Don’t let that old German come in here again
He wound up your clock and left mine on the shelf
If your old clock needs winding, sure I’ll wind it meself”