Two comedy songs from Harry Fay, on themes that were topical when recorded c.1919.
P. P. Percy is about a rather unreliable young man enticing young ladies with jazz music and his fictitious WW1 military decorations while "spending all the [stolen] petty cash". Topical but timeless.
Mister Pussyfoot is an anti-prohibition warning about the evils of soft drinks - William "Pussyfoot" Johnson was a zealous temperance activist and enforcer. It turns out that the writers were being too pessimistic, because temperance was despised in Britain. Indeed, when Johnson visited London in November 1919 he was caught by students and paraded through the streets on a stretcher after having beer poured over him, the students chanting ‘What won the war? Rum!’ and ‘We’ve got Pussyfoot now, send him back to America’. During this he was struck by an object thrown from the crowd and lost his right eye. He observed that the police were not very sympathetic.
Transferred from originals loaned by Adam Ramet
