Another Broadside Banger by Julian Gaskell & his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

Granny Smith, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Pink Lady and Jazz, we know how they got their names, but what about the Cat’s Head Apple?  Find out how it got its name in our rendition of a 200 year old proto-music hall ballad.  

NEWLY RECORDED in 2024 for our forthcoming ‘Broadside Bangers’ album, which will be released by Kroustpop Records on 1st May 2025, here at last is a full-band arrangement of Cat’s Head Apples, with some tasty telecaster and junkyard polka percussion. Using a traditional apple grafting technique, we were able to combine this new recording with the existing video to create a whole new variety.

So you can now enjoy the astonishing and shocking video from 2023 directed by Cally Gibson and starring Ethel Darling, Buster Kitten as well as of course Julian Gaskell with a fresh new dimension and depth of sonic experience.

ALL ABOUT THE APPLES….

The lyrics to ‘Cat’s Head Apples’ were found by Julian Gaskell on a late 19th century broadside print in the Bodleian Library, using an academically rigorous search for ‘cats’:   Roud: V6660 Bod:11705  NOTE – this link no longer works, Bodleian Library don’t do ballads anymore, sorry!

Further research by the intrepid Mr Gaskell revealed that the song was in fact written by the proto-music-hall comic songwriter Thomas Hudson of London and appeared in his self-published Comic Songs by Thomas Hudson, 8th Collection in 1827.   Hudson (1791-1844) worked as a grocer, then a Drury Lane pub landlord, and was a well known songwriter and performer in London whose ‘published collections of songs, two or three times a year, were always looked for with avidity by the singers of the day, his compositions generally forming their staple commodity’   “The Late Mr. Thomas Hudson”, Illustrated London News, 27 July 1844, p.56

This song would have been performed at the taverns and coffee houses which preceded the development of music halls, and indeed Hudson is seen as an early figure in the development of the Music Hall style, as subjects moved  ‘towards a purely domestic source of humour – a reliance on the commonplace and intimate occurrences of everyday life’ Harold Scott: The Early Doors.   It is no coincidence then, that ‘Cat’s Head Apples’ is such a striking song to perform – its fast comic pace and shocking imagery is designed to cut through the rowdiness and noise of a 19th century tavern.  

Sadly, no record of the music exists so we wrote our own ditty to accompany this charming story and recorded it live in our Penryn living room with the following lineup:

Julian Gaskell – vocals, accordion, kick drum, ankle bells

Cally Gibson – violin and vocal interjections

Thomas Sharpe – upright bass

This song has become a showstopping banger, a highlight of any live performance and a robust story which resonates with the young and the old,and opens up discussion on pet care and diversity of apple varieties in the 21st century.   

We took great care in filming a promotional video for this song, which we hope captures some of the essence of poor unfortunate Tom and the Widow Tompkins whilst remaining true to the writing of Thomas Hudson

For further information, may we recommend http://folksongandmusichall.com/ – a fascinating and informative website concerned with the intersection of folk and music hall, songs and social history.