An 1868 English music hall “Comic Song Schottisch”
words by George Leybourne
music by Alfred Lee
This character or stage persona, the so-called Heavy Swell, was a caricature of the fashionable dandies of London society. In a puce jacket, a brilliantly-colored vest, and trousers either enormously checked or striped like railway-lines, Charlie led the chorus.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by Werner Tomaschewski:
Lyrics
- I’ve seen a deal of gaiety through out my noisy life
With all my grand accomplishments I ne’er could get a wife
The thing I most excel in is the P. R. F. G. game
A noise all night in bed all day, and swimming in Champagne
Chorus
For Champagne Charlie is my name
Champagne Charlie is my name
Good for any game at night, my boys
Good for any game at night, my boys
Champagne Charlie is my name
Champagne Charlie is my name
Good for any game at night, boys
Who’ll come and join me in a spree
- From Coffee and from supper rooms, from Poplar to Pall Mall
The girls on seeing me exclaim “Oh! what a Champagne swell!”
The notion ’tis of everyone, if ’twere not for my name
And causing so much to be drunk, they’d never make Champagne - The way I gained my title’s by a hobby which I’ve got
Of never letting others pay, however long the shot
Who ever drinks at my expense are treated all the same
From Dukes and Lords to Cabmen down
I make them drink Champagne - Some epicures like Burgundy, Hock, Claret, and Moselle
But Moet’s Vintage only satisfies this Champagne swell
What matter if to bed I go, and head is muddled thick
A bottle in the morning sets me right then very quick - Perhaps you fancy what I say is nothing else but chaff
And only done like other songs, to merely raise a laugh
To prove that I am not in jest each man a bottle of Cham
I’ll stand fizz round – yes that I will, and stand it – like a lamb
Sung here by Fred Feild: