It was almost universally known in England until around the mid-1950s, when it began to fade as being too old-fashioned. The title refers to the district of Paddington in London. The song gained a place in the canonical Oxford Book of Comic Verse, and the original manuscript of "Polly" is now held in the Bodleian Library. It was adapted for the USA by Clifton during the American Civil War, retitled "Polly Perkins of Abington Green". Presumably the new title referred to Abington Green, Georgia, in the United States. It was also published fairly early in its existence as "Pretty Polly Perkins of Pemberton Green". Most of Clifton's songs adapted their tunes from old folk songs and it is possible that a folk tune is also the origin of the tune for Polly—some see a resemblance to "Nightingales Sing", also known as "The Bold Grenadier". The famous Tyneside Music Hall song Cushie Butterfield is sung to the same tune as "Polly" and is a parody of "Polly". Cushie Butterfield is attributed to the great Geordie comic singer George Ridley, who died in 1864; "Cushie" was first published in book form in the 1873 edition of "Allan's Tyneside Songs". Clifton's death date means that both the song and its tune are now firmly in the public domain. The tune, with new lyrics, found its way into the Australian bush culture, among outback farmers and sheep shearers, in the song "One of the Has-beens". In the British Royal Navy, and in the Royal Australian Navy, sailors with a surname of Perkins are traditionally given the nickname of 'Polly'. The chorus of the song is sung by the feverish Sergeant Maxfield in the 1964 film Zulu . The chorus of the song is also sung by Perks the Station Master in the 1970 filmThe Railway Children. The name Polly Perkins is that of the heroine in the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In John Mortimer's A Voyage Round My Father, it is the favourite song of the narrator's father, who sings snatches of it on the most inappropriate occasions.
Lyrics
I am a broken-hearted milkman, in grief I'm arrayed Through keeping of the company of a young servant maid Who lived on board and wages, the house to keep clean In a gentleman's family near Paddington Green She was as beautiful as a butterfly and proud as a Queen Was pretty little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green She'd an ankle like an antelope and a step like a deer
A voice like a blackbird, so mellow and clear
Her hair hung in ringlets so beautiful and long I thought that she loved me but I found I was wrong
Her eyes were as black as the pips of a pear No rose in the garden with her cheeks could compare
Her hair hung in ringlets so beautiful and long I thought that she loved me but I found I was wrong Refrain When I'd rattle in the morning and cry "Milk below" At the sound of my milk cans her face she did show With a smile upon her countenance and a laugh in her eye If I'd thought that she loved me I'd have laid down to die Refrain When I asked her to marry me, she said "Oh what stuff" And told me to stop it for she'd had quite enough Of my nonsense... At the same time, I'd been very kind But to marry a milkman she didn't feel inclined Refrain "The man that has me must have silver and gold A chariot to ride in and be handsome and bold His hair must be curly as any watch-spring, And his whiskers as big as a brush for clothing" Refrain The words that she uttered went straight through my heart I sobbed and I sighed, and I straight did depart With a tear on my eyelid as big as a bean I bid farewell to Polly and to Paddington Green Refrain In six months she married, this hard-hearted girl But it was not a viscount, and it was not an earl It was not a, but a shade or two worse It was a bow-legged conductor of a tuppenny bus Refrain
