I Do Like To be Beside the Seaside

"I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside" is a popular British music hall song. It was written in 1907 by John A. Glover-Kind ^[1] and made famous by music hall singer Mark Sheridan who first recorded it in 1909.^[2] It speaks of the singer's love for the seaside, and their wish to return there for their summer holidays each year. It was composed at a time when the yearly visits of the British working-class to the seaside were booming. It can be heard at the end of the famed Queen song, "Seven Seas of Rhye" as it fades out. It was, for a long time, used as a signature tune by Reginald Dixon MBE, who was the resident organist at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool between 1930-1970.

Lyrics

Everyone delights to spend their summer's holiday
Down beside the side of the silvery sea
I'm no exception to the rule
In fact, if I'd my way
I'd reside by the side of the silvery sea.
But when you're just the common or garden Smith or Jones or Brown
At bus'ness up in town
You've got to settle down.
You save your money all the year till summer comes around
Then away you go
To a place you know
Where the cockle shells are found.

Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside
I do like to be beside the sea!
I do like to stroll upon the Prom, Prom, Prom!
Where the brass bands play:
"Tiddely-om-pom-pom!"
So just let me be beside the seaside
I'll be beside myself with glee

And there's lots of girls beside,
I should like to be beside
Beside the seaside!
Beside the sea!

(8 bar interlude)

William Sykes the burglar,
He'd been out to work one night
Filled his bag with jewels, cash, and plate.
Constable Brown felt quite surprised when William hove in sight
Said he: "The hours you're keeping are far too late."
So he grabbed him by the collar and lodged him safe and sound in jail
Next morning looking pale
Bill told a tearful tale.
The judge said, "For a couple of months I'm sending you away!"
Said Bill: "How kind!
Well! If you don't mind
Where I spend my holiday!"

Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside
I do like to be beside the sea!
I do like to stroll upon the Prom, Prom, Prom!
Where the brass bands play:
"Tiddely-om-pom-pom!"
So just let me be beside the seaside
I'll be beside myself with glee
And there's lots of girls beside,
I should like to be beside
Beside the seaside!
Beside the sea!

Use in music and film

• The song was briefly chanted at the end of Queen's song "Seven Seas of Rhye", and whistled at the beginning of "Brighton Rock".
• Sylvia Scarlett (1935), starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.
• Bank Holiday (1938), starring Margaret Lockwood and Hugh Williams. The tune is used as a theme several times during the film.
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), starring Basil Rathbone, involves a heavily disguised Holmes singing the song. An anachronism, as the film was set in 1892 fifteen years before the song was written.
• Mr Moto's Last Warning (1939), starring Peter Lorre and George Sanders. The antagonist's (Ricardo Cortez) ventriloquism act features a dummy singing the song while he drinks a glass of water and smokes a cigarette.
• Carry on follow that camel (1967): when the foreign legionnaires become lost in the North African desert they sing the song.
• Oh What a Lovely War (1969) features a pierside scene where Sir Douglas Haig is trying to recruit for the First World War, with the words of the song changed to “I do to like to see a lot of soldiers”.
• An Awfully Big Adventure (1994), starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman, includes a scene where two theatre troupes sing the chorus of the song while riding a bus to a football game.

References

1. ^ http://www.eastbournecousins.com/idolovetobe.htm
2. ^ http://www.marksheridan.org/html/biography.html