Until I retired a few years ago from the pen store I worked at outside of Washington DC, whenever I got an older British customer, I would always sing this song - and they always knew the words. I guess I’m rather unusual on this side of the pond for knowing anything about Flanders and Swann. I miss them.
I grew up with these guys, enjoying their music most evenings when staying with good friends during school days!! We used to roar with laughter and total enjoyment, so infections were their songs! Can’t thank you enough for posting, you’ve taken me back to when I about 12, hating boarding school, but loving all things musical. Thanks to this start and with a lot to do with F and S, I wound up at the Royal College of Music in London studying with Sir David Willcocks, Nicholas Danby and John Russell!!!!! God Bless you and please keep the F and S coming!! Adrian in Bermuda 💕❤️💕
High culture indeed! I wonder why they omitted the middle verse in that performance. If memory serves, it goes as follows: "The fair hippopotama he aimed to entice From her seat on the hilltop above, As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice Came tiptoeing down to her love. Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound Of the song that they sang as they met. His inamorata Adjusted her garter And lifted her voice in duet."
I remember Flanders and Swan. I was very young but I remember watching them on our old black and white tv. I didn't remember one of them being in a wheel chair though.
Such a catchy song! A truly unique duo! Who else could think to write such clever songs on the most esoteric subjects. " The Slow Train " is one of my favorites, too. I love Michael's reaction when the audience heartily joins in on the first " Mud..."
Wonderful! Beats into a top hat a lot of the rubbish on TV today. I first heard this in the 60's on Junior Choice. True talent. See also 'The Gas Man Cometh' & 'I'm A Gnu!'
One of my brothers and I sang “The Gasman Cometh” at a family reunion three years ago in Ohio. If we do it again, I think we’re going to try “The Second Law of Thermodynamics.” Ah, professor H2Su4 to you - and the Reciprocal of Pi to your good wife…
I’m a G-nu, I’m a G-nu The g-nicest work of g-nature in the zoo… 😍 Sang this to my baby grandchildren…they’re all teenagers now and the dreaded ‘ all-encompassing embarrassment’ has sealed them away from me. But maybe they’ll listen and laugh again one day. 😔
Charming! We have an LP recording of Flanders and Swan, regularly quoting and singing the songs. These two are wonderful! I loved seeing them on video.
I've been looking for this song for decades. My mom, born and raised in 1934 in Liverpool, used to sing it to us. (I'm American.) It was such a fun song, and she was so silly and joyful singing it to us. Miss you, Mom.
Michael Flanders' wife, Claudia, was American btw. She later ran a disability travel charity in the 90s called Tripscope. Stephanie Flanders the financial commentator is their daughter. I think Claudia worked for Radio Free Europe before they met.
Michael Flanders a 6 ‘4’ top athlete who went to the navy in WW2 and survived a torpedo attack on his ship then got polio and was wheelchair bound for the rest of his life. Shunned by universities for his disability despite giving his life for his country then wrote, acted and performed on stage. An absolute genius who was taken so suddenly! ❤️
Heres the lyrics for your sing a long! The Hippopotamus Song Ian Wallace With Donald Swann A bold hippopotamus was standing one day On the banks of the cool Shalimar He gazed at the bottom as he peacefully lay By the light of the evening star Away on the hilltop sat combing her hair His fair hippopotami maid The hippopotamus was no ignoramus And sang her this sweet serenade Mud, mud, glorious mud Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood So follow me follow, down to the hollow And there let me wallow in glorious mud The fair hippopotama he aimed to entice From her seat on that hilltop above As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice Came tiptoeing down to her love Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound Of the song that they sang as they met His inamorata adjusted her garter And lifted her voice in duet Kranz, kranz schmoodliger kranz, Holudshia shretsaca coldliger kranz Heckvas lees fer you dawgo Follow me follow Begeelio bedabo Down to the hollow Wenyou taub me aput in some true gulio kranz That will prove our cultural relations. Now more hippopotami began to convene On the banks of that river so wide I wonder now what am I to say of the scene That ensued by the Shalimar side They dived all at once with an ear-splitting sposh Then rose to the surface again A regular army of hippopotami All singing this haunting refrain Mud, mud, glorious mud Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood So follow me follow, down to the hollow And there let us wallow in glorious mud!
Truly the last, greatest, gentaly (howsoever it is spelled or spoken) English musical duo; the truest summary of British Culture that faded into the realms of nostalgia of lost Empire before the 60s resurgence of Beatlemania and its ilk.
@@racheleraanan5133 Few speak as you did; people will acknowledge that cultures have changed, but almost no one admits that they no longer exist. It's strange, surreal, because that reality can create a sense of having lived two lifetimes, one then, and one now, as we are so disconnected from our long ago past.
@@cacatr4495 - Very true and well put, except it hasn't been that long. Historically change proceeded at a snail's pace - with occasional fits, starts and upheavals. WWI produced a sea-change, only compounded in the aftermath of WWII. The world had barely settled, when the age of technology was born - accelerating change beyond anything imagined. Not only do we not live in the same world as our parents did, our younger children do not live in the same world as their older siblings! I've had students react with disbelief when told there were no cell phones when I was a child. A friend tried explaining to his students about life before personal computers, social media and cell phones. They couldn't comprehend. Then again, have you ever had a toddler, who can't read yet, explain to you how to programme a robot?? Different world.
@@virginiaconnor8350 The politicians and the industrialists greedy for cheap labor. The rest of us never invited them, never wanted them, and yet we are the ones that must now suffer to live with them and see our children suffer all the more, for it is only getting worse.
The was my favorite song in the early 60’s my mom wud throw 45 record & then drag it out of the trash.....West Texas, I’m 72 yr old TODAY 🇨🇱AustinTX “MrDon”
YEAH ,I LEARNT THIS SONG FROM MY MAM AND DADA WHEN I WAS 4 OR 5 yrs OLD THAT WAS 1972 -- 73 AND I AM 52 yrs OLD AND IM STILL SINGING IT....I LOVE THIS SONG 👍😁🍺❤️❤️🇬🇧 STAY SAFE WORLD 🌈🌈🏳️🌈🇧🇴🇧🇴🌈🌈🌈🏳️🌈🇧🇴🇧🇴🇷🇺🇬🇧
So did I..probably in the late sixties or early seventies from my parents and my aunt..it was a great song then as is now..and I'm 57 and singing along..and I became a punk but still loved this classic
My parents had the A Drop of a Hat album and me and my sister learnt all the songs as 9/10/11-year-olds in the mid-70s. Same went for Songs By Tom Lehrer!
God, they were wonderful! I had a wonderful two-cassette set that I made the mistake of loaning, and never saw it again. These two were geniuses! Now, onto "The Gas Man Cometh!"
@@SuperFerdie1965 Yes he wrote mystery stories and featured in a lousy series which gets aired now on vintage film channels with his sculpted head going round after the titles. He was once a famous name but now his work is synonymous with boredom like the reminiscences of Edgar Lustgarten which are no doubt true but delivered in a terribly bad style. Two Edgar's and another Wallace to symbolise the silly Scots singer.
For anyone who wants it, we are selling not one but 2 copies of this in the records section of the thrift store 2339 Ogilvie Rd Ottawa. Hope they both find homes.
I listened to all the editions of this on You Tube. However I remember it being sung by a bass, where the finals words, 'where we shall wallow in glorious mud,' is sung slowly with descending notes, finishing on 'mud 'which only the deepest voices can sing.
