Ag Pleez Deddy
(The Ballad Of The Southern Suburbs)
Jeremy Taylor
Lyrics
- Ag pleez deddy won't you take us to the drive-in
- All six, seven of us, eight, nine, ten
- We wanna see a flick about
- Tarzan and the Ape-men
- And when the show is over you can bring us back again
- Chorus:
- Popcorn, chewing gum, peanuts and bubble gum
- Ice cream, candy floss and Eskimo Pie
- Ag deddy how we miss
- Nigger balls and liquorice
- Pepsi Cola, ginger beer
- and Canada Dry
- Ag pleez deddy won't you take us to the fun-fair
- We wanna have a ride on the bumper-cars
- We'll buy a stick of candy floss
- And eat it on the Octopus
- Then we'll take the rocket ship that goes to Mars
- Chorus
- Ag pleez deddy won't you take us to the wrestling
- We wanna see an ou called Sky Hi Lee
- When he fights Willie Liebenberg
- There's gonna be a murder
- 'Cos Willie's gonna donner that blerrie yankee
- Chorus
- Ag pleez deddy won't you take us off to Durban
- It's only eight hours in the Chevrolet
- There's spans of sea and sand and sun
- And fish in the aquarium
- That's a lekker place for a holiday
- Chorus
- Ag Pleeeeeez Deddy - VOETSEK!
- Ag sies deddy if we can't kraak to bioscope
- Or go off to Durban, life's a henguva bore
- If you won't take us to the zoo
- Then what the heck else can we do
- But go on out and moer all the outjies next door
- Chorus
Words and Music by Jeremy Taylor, 1961
1961 I vividly remember writing this song. I remember the little flat in Violet Street and the room I used to pace around at nights nursing a cholicky daughter. Sometimes I would put her in the karrikot and into the back of my 1947 Morris Minor (the one with the split windscreen and side valves) and we'd drive around the Southern suburbs. Jess would sleep then. But as soon as we got back and I stopped the car she would wake up again so I don't know if it was such a good ruse after all. But at least she and her mother got some sleep, until the next feed. Today she plays the 'cello and nurses two children of her own.
One curious fact about AG PLEEZ DEDDY is that after I had written a verse and a chorus of it I threw it away because I thought it was dumb. It probably was dumb, but three weeks later I read an article about a writer, a serious one, who said there was one golden rule about writing and that was to finish whatever you had started, otherwise you would never learn anything. Reluctantly I hauled my verse and chorus out of the dustbin, wrote three more verses, added "Voetsek" and sang it surreptitiously one night to Manny Wainer, the owner of the Cul de Sac, who gave me encouragement and a pound note and said, "Sing it to the people tonight." I was later persuaded to take it to the Gallo Record Company. A gentleman - Phil Goldblatt - listened patiently while I sang it to him then explained that no one would buy it because it wasn't commercial. He added, however, that he would always be happy to listen to any future efforts.
AG PLEEZ DEDDY was recorded a year later (live - at a Cape Town recording of Wait a Minim) and the single sold more copies in South Africa than any of Elvis Presley's.
The birth of a song is like any other birth; it can be short and sweet or long and arduous and you never know what you are going to get at the end of it. You just have to take each one as it comes.
Jeremy Taylor, taken off the 3rd Ear Music website