DESCRIPTION:
When Father Papered the Parlour is a popular song, written and composed by R. P. Weston and Fred J. Barnes in 1910. It is performed by comedian Billy Williams, and was one of his most successful hits.
Richard Isaac Banks (1878 - March 1915), who changed his name to Billy Williams after leaving his birthplace of Australia, was one of the most recorded popular entertainers of his and indeed of all time. His recordings sold in their thousands long after his early death in 1915. Born in Melbourne, Williams tried a number of jobs before embarking on an entertainment career which led him to come to England in 1899. He became a popular entertainer in the music halls singing what were known as chorus-songs - he also appeared in pantomime.
Sadly this fame was not to last as Williams became ill in late 1914 and died in Hove near Brighton in March 1915, the proximate cause being complications after an operation, but rumoured to be connected with "previous social excesses."
He recorded this in 1912, sang it in dance halls before that.
WHEN FATHER PAPERED THE PARLOUR LYRICS:
Our parlour wanted papering,
And Pa says it was waste
To call a paperhanger in,
And so he made some paste.
He bought some rolls of paper,
Got a ladder and a brush
And with my mummy's nightgown on,
At it he made a rush.
Chorus:
When Father papered the parlour
You couldn't see him for paste
Dabbing it here! dabbing it there!
Paste and paper everywhere
Mother was stuck to the ceiling
The children stuck to the floor
I never knew a blooming family
So 'stuck up' before.
The pattern was 'blue roses'
with its leaves red, white, and brown;
He'd stuck it wrong way up and now,
we all walk upside down.
And when he trimm'd the edging
off the paper with the shears,
The cat got underneath it,
and dad cut off both its ears.
Chorus:
Soon dad fell down the stairs
and dropp'd his paperhanger's can
On little Henrietta sitting there
with her young man,
The paste stuck them together,
as we thought t'would be for life,
We had to fetch the parson in
to make them man and wife.
Chorus:
We're never going to move away
from that house any more
For Father's gone and stuck the chairs
and table to the floor,
We can't find our piano,
though it's broad and rather tall,
We think that it's behind the paper
Pa stuck on the wall.
Chorus:
Now, Father's sticking in the pub,
through treading in the paste,
And all the family's so upset,
they've all gone pasty faced.
While Pa says, now that Ma has spread
the news from north to south,
He wishes he had dropped a blob
of paste in Mother's mouth.