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I'm a young married man and I'm tired of my life,
For lately I've married an ailing old wife;
She does nothing all day but sit down and sigh,
See, I wish to the Lord that I only could die.
Doctor, O Doctor, O dear Doctor John,
Your cod liver oil is so pure and so strong;
I'm afraid of me life, I'll go down in the soil,
If me wife keeps on drinking your cod liver oil.
Well, a friend of me own came to see me one day,
And he told me my wife was just pining away;
And he also told me that she would get strong,
If I bought her a bottle from dear Doctor John.
Doctor, O Doctor, O dear Doctor John,
Your cod liver oil is so pure and so strong;
I'm afraid of me life, I'll go down in the soil,
If me wife keeps on drinking your cod liver oil.
I bought her a bottle, 'twas just for a try,
And the way that she drank it, you'd swear she was dry;
I bought her another, it went just the same,
Till I know she's got cod liver oil on the brain.
Doctor, O Doctor, O dear Doctor John,
Your cod liver oil is so pure and so strong;
I'm afraid of me life, I'll go down in the soil,
If me wife keeps on drinking your cod liver oil.
My house it resembles a big doctor's shop,
With bottles and bottles from bottom to top;
And when in the morning the kettle do boil,
You would swear it was singing 'bout cod liver oil.
Doctor, O Doctor, O dear Doctor John,
Your cod liver oil is so pure and so strong;
I'm afraid of me life, I'll go down in the soil,
If me wife keeps on drinking your cod liver oil.
This variant collected by Kenneth Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 1, pp.48-49, by The National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
The YouTube video above features a variant taped in the mid 1970s for the Ryan's Fancy television show in Change Islands, NL.
See more songs by Ryan's Fancy.
A variant was also arranged and recorded as Cod Liver Oil by Fine Crowd (Poverty's Arse, trk#6, 1995, produced and engineered at Piperstock Productions, Torbay, NL, by Dermot O'Reilly).
Another variant was also arranged and recorded as Cod Liver Oil by Great Big Sea - Pre GBS (Rankin Street Tape - Live At The Blarneystone, 1991).
