From the comic play “Squatter Sovereignty”, 1881.
words by Ed Harrigan
music by David Braham
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- Oh, I’m a lone widdy, meself and my daughter
We live in a house where there’s welcome galore
My husband he formerly carried up mortar
From the ground to the third or fourth floor
When he died he will’d over the land and the shanty
His pipe and his stick and his frieze overcoat
The pig and the goslings, the chickens so banty
And his favorite pet, oh, my buck Billy goat
Chorus
Oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, hone
Come back to my bosom
My own darling Billy
Oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, hone
My favorite pet
Oh, my buck Billy goat
- Wid horses he slept every night in the stable
He’d rise in the morn at the break o’ day
When breakfast was ready he’d come to the table
Sure I never could drive him away
He could butt down a fence, oh, so gentle and aisy
He’d stand near the pond for to see the ducks float
He’d climb over the hills, sure he never was lazy
My own favorite pet, oh, my buck Billy goat - His whiskers were long, like the wandering Jew man
He ate up old hoop-skirts, newspapers, and rags
When a kid he belonged to young Mary Ann Doolan
He would skip and sleep out on the flags
‘Twas a blast from a quarry struck him on the shoulder
The morning my husband went out for to vote
He laid sick a-bed from the fall of the boulder
Did my favorite pet, oh, my buck Billy goat - He’d fight like a trooper, his horns were like sabers
He’d bate all the goats for so many miles ’round
Sure he’d butt at a stranger, butt never a neighbor
Sure they could not take him to the pound
Oh, his right name was Willy, but I called him Billy
He was my companion, on him sure I’d doat
So fond of sunflowers and daffydown dillies
Was my favorite pet, oh, my buck Billy goat - His white hairs were silken, they hung long and drooping
He traveled some time with Mike Regan’s big Nan
If a child in the neighborhood took on a crooping
He’d halt and he’d gaze like a man
All the dogs and the cats, sure they’d never come near him
Wid his horns he would puck them a terrible smote
The long years and days it took me for to rear him
Oh, my favorite pet, oh, my buck Billy goat
Sung here by Fred Feild: