Gossip Calypso by Bernard Cribbins

Album: The Very Best Of Bernard Cribbins (1962)

Charted: 25

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Songfacts®:

In the late 1940s, early '50s, American cinema developed a style known as film noir as captured by the Mark Knopfler composition "Private Investigations." In the '50s and '60s, British cinema and the nascent TV soap operas developed a different style, which although not a recognized genre might best be summed up as kitchen sink, a term apparently first coined by Noël Coward. Picture overweight, frumpy, chain smoking housewives, hair in curlers, hanging out of tenement windows talking incessantly. This is the essence of "Gossip Calypso."
In style, this song could have been written by Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks as per Cribbins' first three singles, but in fact was composed in its entirety by the actor and songwriter Trevor Peacock, and was recorded on Parlophone backed by "One Man Band." The sheet music was published and copyrighted by Jack Good Music Publishing Co, Sole Selling Agents Belinda (London) Ltd and retailed for two shillings and sixpence. >>
Suggestion credit:
Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2

Comments: 1

Alexander St. John from Switzerland(chorus:)
Gossip-calypso, Gossip-calypso
Hear all about it, "yak a yak-yak"
Every woman up at the window giving out the gossip and getting it back:

"Oh, Mrs. Brown, well how are you now."
"I tell you, I've had a shocking time with Ern and his stomach."
"Don’t talk to me, my Charlie has gone and fallen down the stairs again.” "Saints preserve us! Poor old chap, did he hurt himself?"
“Well, not as much as Alf--that's my cousin Fred's boy.
"I learned from Fred (that) the doctor said he'll have to have his kneecap scraped."
“Cor Blimey!"

Singing...(chorus)

Mrs. Booze: “Have you heard the news?
That woman--you know, the very fat one down at the corner--
Climbed in a truck, got stuck.
They think that they never gonna get her out."
“Do tell me!"
"Well, I had a feller 'round and gave him a pound
To free her with an oxyacetylene welder.
Must send along some books; it looks like she's gonna be there quite some time."
“Cor Blimey!” *

Singing...(chorus)

“Oh, Mrs. Ware, I do like your hair! Who does it?"
"I go to Madame Pom Pom round by the gasworks."
"With all that fruit, it looks so cute, I can't believe it,
It's really you, like a film star."
"Have you heard, dear, a little bird has told me
Mrs. Tate's expecting her seventh…"
“Well, glory be, that's three she has had since Lenny had his tonsils out"
“Cor blimey!"

Singing...(chorus)

* Cor Blimey (also Gorblimy) is an expression of surprise/disbelief
It’s a euphemism (specifically a minced oath) derived from 'God blind me'.

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