If, in the 1920s, a Harley street surgeon performed one operation, with instruments long, sharp and thin, what operation would he be performing?
(from the song “My god how the money rolled in”)
Judging by the lyrics, he’s either a lock-picker or an abortionist. Given that Harley Street has a long history of being home to physicians and surgeons of all types, I’m guessing abortionist.
I would guess you will need to provide more info in order to get a reasonable answer.
Alternatively, I may just be extremely uninformed and that is a definite possibility.
It may have something to do with kidney stones. Perhaps the removal of said stones or the pulverizing of those stones?
But a couple of verses earlier, the song is not shy about explicitly mentioning abortions (“For Grandma gets rich from abortions”) so why would this verse dance around the subject?
My first guess was abortions, too, but his grandmother performed those, and it seems like a pretty multi-talented family.
My second guess was providing corpses for aspiring surgeons, but I’m not sure that counts as an operation.
The complete lyrics are here. It’s from a song popular during the Depression.
Dear me, I do believe that is the first time I’ve seen the unexpurgated lyrics. No wonder my mama used to roll her eyes at that one!
So what’s Uncle Joe up to? The song seems to imply that he’ll fuck for money. Meanwhile, the song is explicit that Uncle Tommy will engage in receptive anal intercourse for money. It’s an odd song.
I have an offline vote that the cousin performs lobotomies. Does that make sense?
Not if the surgery was in the 1920’s, since experimental lobotomies were first attempted by Moniz in 1935 and published in 1936, after which the surgery became popular.
Several of them seem to be selling sex in some form, so why couldn’t more than one be performing abortions?
It probably fits with the description of the instruments, but I don’t see it as something that people would line up to pay for like they would with the sex-related services. I also suspect that the instrument description was mainly crafted to fit the meter and rhyme.
It seems to me abortionist makes sense, while the other guesses are reaching.
I still haven’t made sense of Uncle Joe, though. What’s the market for having your “hole plugged?” I figure it’s those who offer the holes who are in demand, not those who want to plug them. (I also think that should be “for a tenner” – i.e., a ten-pound note – rather than “for a tanner.”)
Maybe he was a killer for hire.
Wow, and people freak out about the songs that come out now!
:eek:
I guessed abortions too.
I’m going for assassin.
See “Mack the Knife”
A “tanner” is/was slang for 6d (six old pence, half a shilling) which is a reasonable price for a cheap shag back in the 20s - ten pound is far too much.
No, assassins have nothing to do with sex, surgeons, or Harley Street. Harley Street has been where the posh doctors had their surgeries for ever and having an uncle who does abortions for the rich fits the whole thrust of the song.
Seems strange to make cryptic allusions when Grandma was already mentioned outright as being an abortionist.
Cousin is performing surgical abortions for rich people, granny is a back-alley quack.
Thanks for that – learn something every day.
I don’t find it strange. It’s a song (= a form of poetry), so allusions are par for the course. Cf. “sells kisses to sailors” which surely means more than kisses. Also, stating it differently avoids repeating (or nearly repeating) the line in the Grandma verse, making a better composition of the song as a whole.
There are a number of variants. The earliest version has the lyric as “medical student” rather than Harley Street surgeon.
ETA: there seem to be earlier vesrions which don’t mention physicians at all.