"A Little Bit of Cucumber" is a cockney music hall song, written by T. W. Conner for the comedian and singer Harry Champion, who first performed it in 1915;[1] it was published by Francis, Day & Hunter Ltd. the same year.[2] The song is about the joys of certain types of food, which were popular at the time with the cockney working class community of East London; the words have also long been seen as containing a double entendre.

The song is intended to be sung at a fast tempo. The lyrics centre around the culinary preferences of the working-classes including cucumbers; the vegetable is then compared to other types of food, but by the end of the song the cucumber is affirmed to be the preferable delicacy.[3] It was the second song adopted into Champion's repertoire which centred on food, the first being "Boiled Beef and Carrots" in 1909.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Peter Gammond (1971), Your Own, Your Very Own!: A Music Hall Scrapbook. London: Ian Allan
  2. ↑ Songs of the First World War accessed October 2011
  3. ↑ A Little Bit of Cucumber lyric sheet, Courtesy of International Lyrics Playground, accessed October 2011
  4. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, vol. VIII, p. 471.
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