The Boppenpoof Song by Louis - By Miles

Hi Lance your blog brought back a memory of my first jazz buy. As a callow youth (teenagers hadn't been invented) I spent about 6 bob in Jeavons, Pudding Chare, on 2 records both by Louis, Flee As A Bird (2 sided) and The Boppenpoof Song b/w Bye & Bye. Old man Jeavons tied them together with the paper string they used in those days and after nursing them home, standing all the way on the bus, as it was a match day, I pulled hard on the string and cracked both records. I couldn't afford to buy them again so played them for a long time with the crack as part of the background. By the time I had saved up my pennies the Boppenpoof song had been withdrawn from the catalogue due to complaints. I can still remember the words, the tune was the Whiffenpoof Song. From the tables up at Birdland to the place where Dizzy dwells

In their beards and the funny hats they love so well

See the boppers all assembled and when they get really high

They constitute a weird personnel.

The riffs these cats are playing are crazy, cool and gone,

Oobi doo scooby doo, oo boppy doppin' like that,

But let them beat there brains out till their flatted fifths are gone

And they'll pass and be forgotten like the rest. They are poor little cats who have gone astray,

ba ba ba,

They are little black sheep who have lost their way,

ba daba daba daba doow way. Dixieland music they condemn

But every wrong note they play sounds a gem,

Lord have mercy on such as them

Ba baba daba daba doo way.

Thank God times have changed, or have they?

Miles.

Jazz Journal Review August 1954