Folk Songs in
One Family
The E.L. Simons Folk Song Collection

Time: 2:29
Listen (.mp3@128 kbps)

Song Metadata

Lyrics
'Twas Jolly Old Rogers the tin-maker's man,
Who lived in a garret in New Amsterdam,
And showered down blessings like rain in the spring;
On matrons and maidens of whom I will sing.

Chorus:
Oh there never was yet a boy or a man,
Who better could mend a kettle or pan
Or bucket or skimmer or dipper or can,
Than Jolly Old Rogers the tin-maker man.
Che-wang! che-wang! che-wang! che-wang!
Te-rattle, te-rattle, te-rattle, te-bang!

Jolly Old Rogers as everyone knows,
In purchasing stockings he purchased half-hose,
For he had but one foot and he wore but one shoe;
And he stumped 'round his shop on his old timber toe.

Jolly Old Rogers could not live always,
So the reaper of life cut his life thread one day,
So into the cold earth they tumbled him in;
Poor Jolly Old Rogers the maker of tin.

Note from E.L. Simons (1952): From grandmother Simons, November 1951. Although the style of this song points toward individual composition, I have not been able to find out anything about it.

For other texts see "Roger the Tinker Man," Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, Vol. III, p. 262; "Jolly Old Roger," Flanders and Brown, Vermont Folk-Songs and Ballads (1939), pp. 171-173; Folk Songs of New England, Linscott (1939), p. 222, 224; "Johnnie O'Rogers," Brewster, Ballads and Songs of Indiana (1940), p. 318; and Doering, Journal of American Folk Lore (1944), v. 57, p. 75.