TRACK #15:   Discussion | Lyrics | About the Composer   • • •   JUMP TO CD #1 »

FROM CD #2:
What-Ho! She Bumps!

Music by Arthur J. Mills;
words by Harry Castling

Song Lyrics

I've been out on a pleasure boat for a day on the breezy brine;
We started away from London Bridge, and we all felt fit and fine,
We sang "A Life on the Ocean Wave" as loud as we could roar,
Our boat went alright down the Thames, but when we reached the Nore —
She began to bump a little bit, bump, bump, bump, just a little bit;
A fat man fell down the engine room, his wife was clinging to the great jibboom,
She roll'd about, and, fairly in the dumps, I clung to the Captain's bags, and cried:
"What-ho! she bumps!"

I once played in a drama that we called "The Flying Scud,
I'd to appear on a gee-gee, and it was a bit of blood!
In front of the blooming audience I had to mount her nibs,
And when I stuck a pin into her india rubber ribs —
She began to bump a little bit, bump, bump, bump, just a little bit;
Oh, she made a tremendous hit when she kick'd our villain in the threep'ny bit;
The actors guyed as she took running jumps,
And a boy in the gallery cried, Encore, "What-ho! she bumps!"

Where I lived at the seaside once a girl lived opposite,
And one fine morning she went to bathe in a costume pink and white;
A crowd of chaps stood on the shore as she waded in the blue,
And ev'ryone was, anxious there to see what she would do.
She began to bump a little bit, bump, bump, bump, just a little bit;
At first she was bashful as she could be, till she got used to the rolling sea,
Then up and down the little petlet jumps,
and the men all shouted from the golden shore: "What-ho! she bumps!"

<< back to top