Boiled Beef and Carrots

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"Boiled Beef and Carrots" is a comedic musical hall song published in 1909, and composed by Charles Collins and Fred Murray.

The song was made famous by Harry Champion who sang it as part of his act and recorded it. It was also recorded by Peter Sellers in the 1960s.

The song extols the virtues of a typical English, and particularly Cockney, dish.

Chorus:

Boiled beef and carrots,
Boiled beef and carrots,
That's the stuff for your "Derby Kell",
Makes you fit and keeps you well.
Don't live like vegetarians
On the stuff they give to parrots,
From Morn til' night, blow out your kite
On boiled beef and carrots.

"Derby Kell" is old cockney rhyming slang for belly ("Derby Kelly"). "Blow out your kite" refers to the fact that 'kite' (also 'kyte') is a working-class British slang word for the human belly, and -- by extension -- the entire human body. [1]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, vol. VIII, p. 471.