Oh listen a while with attention till I sing you a verse of a song,
Concerning a couple who had married, I don't mean to keep you too long.
They lived in the height of contentment, though sometimes a row might occur,
A dent in my head she would splinter, saying, ‘What did I marry you for?’

So lie like a frog in the garden, don't step till you've view all around.
For if you get a wife such as I got, your courage she'll surely break down.

When I would come home with my wages, it’s then she would call me her dear.
She would let-on to go for my supper, but then she would start on the beer.
If my hand I would only lift to her, to charge me she never did fail,
For the second time as I can tell you, she’d send me a month off to jail.

So lie like a frog in the garden, don't step till you view all around,
For if you get a wife such as I got your courage she'll surely break down

One day I came home to my dinner, and what do you think I did see?
I got her blind drunk in the sofa, and an old pensioner up in her knee.
Instead of she getting my dinner, to teach me she put lime down my throat,
And away to the pawn she skedaddled with my watch and my new Sunday coat.

Above other men I'm a pity, the greatest that ever was known,
I think I will sell her by auction, and on to the world I’ll roam.
And if I was once more single, a widower all my life I'll remain,
And if women were ten for a penny, I’d never get married again.

So lie like a frog in the garden, don't step till you view all around,
For if you get a wife such as I got, your courage she'll surely break down.

It was last Shrove I got married, and well I remember the day,
For life I will surely remember, what the clergy did solemnly say:
He told me ‘For worse or for better’, ‘No wonder’, I sorely sigh.
I wish that the devil would take her or some cruel death she would die.

Above other men I'm a pity, the greatest that ever was known,
I think I will sell her by auction, and on to the world I’ll roam.
So lie like a frog in the garden, don't step till you view all around,
For if you get a wife such as I got your courage she'll surely break down.

“This song of marital strife seems to be unique to Straighty; there are no other recorded versions of it as far as I can find.”
Jim Carroll