American Old Time Song Lyrics: 37 The Funeral Invitation

Theater, Music-Hall, Nostalgic, Irish & Historic Old Songs, Volume 37

THE FUNERAL INVITATION.
As sung by Miller And Lee

The other night I got an invitation to a funeral,
But, much to my discomforture,
The fellow didn't die;
Of course, he told the company he was sorry
To disappoint them,
And after he'd apologized, we let the thing go by.
To right the disappointment,
He took us out and treated us.
He called a quart of porter
For a company of ten,
And when some fellow questioned him
Whose money he was squandering;
That fellow got his eyelids put in mourning
There and then.
Now the owner of the beer shop,
When he heard us all a-rioting,
Gave orders to evict us, but to go we all refused.
So he whistled on some loafers
Who were standing on the corner.
And for ten or fifteen minutes we were
Terribly abused;
They chased us from the beer shop,
And down the street we staggered,
When a lot of ragged urchins
Started pelting us with mud.
We told them for to chuck,
And they told us they were doing so.
But latterly they haunted us,
And left us where we stood.

So we got a concertina for to keep up
The hilarity.
But none of us could play,
Though we tried our best and worst;
Though we made enough of noise on It,
If that was any benefit.
We handled it so gently that the
Bellows we did burst.
We got some hot potatoes for to mend
The concertina with,
When some one struck Maloney
With the carcass of a cat.
He buckled on his whiskers,
And began to read the riot act,
And swore he'd put two heads upon
The sucker that done that;
Then we came in contact with
A band of Salvationists,
Who rifled all our pockets.
And they asked us what we'd saved.
And little John McGinty got
Escorted to the station-house
For asking a policeman
If his appetite was shaved.
Now to raise McGinty's fine every man
Took off his undershirt.
And off to the pawn-shop
Went the blooming lot;
We told the man we only wanted
Two fifty on the lot.
There's enough on them already,
Was the answer that we got.
But we got the two and a half on them.
And went to raise McGinty.

But to the devil with the whiskey-shop-
We met one on the way.
Of course, we could not pass it
Without having some refreshment.
And we squandered every nickel
Of the fine we had to pay;
The whiskey being in us all, of course.
The sense was out of us,
And for a bit of rioting
We quickly did repair,
We battered one another till
We were not worth a nickel.
And truth you might have carpeted
The floor with skin and hair.
Muldoon he struck McCuster
And McCuster struck some other one,
And every one struck any one
On whom they had a spite;
And cripple Mike, no matter who
Was sitting saying nothing,
Got a kick that broke his jaw
For not indulging in the fight;
They fought away like Turks, until the police
They separated us
And dragged us to the station
With broken noses and black eyes.
I got sixty days in prison,
And to me it was a lesson,
For I'll go no more to funerals
Before the people die.