American Old Time Song Lyrics: 39 Doing Dr Tanner Till The Pay Day Comes

Theater, Music-Hall, Nostalgic, Irish & Historic Old Songs, Volume 39

Doing Dr. Tanner till the Pay Day comes
Revised by T. H. Tooker. Sung by Jack Hennessy.

I once wuz very healthy looking, but now I'm frail and done;
For I'm married to a woman, shure ov me she's making fun.
She has taken in a lodger by the name ov Mickey Burke;
He's a big, strong, strapping fellow, but doesn't do a tap ov work.
Now I wheel coke in the gas-works, yes, for very little pay,
And loike a dacint man take me wages home ivery Saturday;
'Tis then me wife and Mickey Burke they both go on a spree,
And they tell me for to take a "sneak," they have no use for me.

Chorus.
Yis, ivery Monday morning, whin I go to me work,
Me wife goes on a "racket" wid this lodger Mickey Burke;
Shure they "blow in" all me wages on whiskey And hot rums,
Then we're doing Dr. Tanner till the pay day comes.

The other night, while I wuz shaving, I wuz taken by surprise,
For whin I wuzn't looking me wife blackened both me eyes;
And me nose, as ye can plainly see, it's disfigured at the point.
For wid a frying pan that night she knocked it out ov joint.
I raised me fist to strike her, but Burke, the lodger, interfered,
And through the kitchen window like a shot I disappeared;
Then they licked me and kicked me; they bate me black and blue-
Oh, I thought me name wuz Dinnis, for they broke me face in two.- Chorus.

'Twas on last St. Patrick's morning, I complained ov feeling ill;
I told me wife I wouldn't go out: sez she, "I think ye will;
For the divil a thing is wrong wid ye unless a sleepy head";
Then she caught me by the whiskers and dragged me out ov bed.
I wuz thrown out in the hall way loike a shovelful ov dirt,
And faith, all I had upon me wuz a woolen undershirt.
I gave the door a thump or two, which brought the lodger out,
And the Bucker nearly paralyzed me wid a batter on the snout.- Chorus.

Now I've a big revolver-'twill shoot a thousand feet, they say-
And wid it I've been practicing in a shooting gallery to-day;
For, begorra, whin I gits home it's wid Burke I'm going to fight.
Vis, I'll shoot the dirty blackguard if I meet him to-night.
And whin I'm done wid him I'll put the fixings to me wife-
For, upon me soul, I do intend to lead a happy, quiet life.
I'll have the coppers "pinch" her and put her in the jail,
And may the divil take the first man that ever goes her bail.- Chorus.