Composed in 1967, with only one version known. The voice part is mostly unison, but divides in the antiphon and Gloria, and is suitable for upper, lower or mixed voices.

Cambridge University Library MS.Tranchell.2.358.

From The Caian November 1971 (written by PAT):

Bishop Hugh Montefiore, when Dean, was responsible for the introduction of special musical settings of the psalms, with illuminating refrains. After ten years the tradition has crystallised into the singing of these settings (composed mostly by Peter Tranchell for the purpose) as a regular item at evensongs on Thursdays. There are now eighteen settings; and they increase annually as opportunity affords.

The full typeset PDF scores:

Organ (and choir)

Choir parts

Please contact us if you would like to order pre-printed copies. Please also see our guidance on the use of this score.

Lovesome was probably composed in the late 1940s for The Footlights. One of the piano versions was written on blank pages of instrumental parts from the Footlights archive.

A caption on one score gives an alternative title: 'Psychological game (Doublebasses)'.

Free score of the voice parts for Lovesome.

This work will be typeset in due course.

PDF of the manuscript score

In a letter to his parents dated 25th August 1959, Peter explained: … “Paddy Hadley has asked me to write a work for the chorus of Gonville & Caius College. I am preparing a libretto for myself based on an amusing adventure story by the Greek writer Lucian, 125 A.D. A very successful collaboration, I must confess, – as there is no disagreement as to any single thing.” With an increased work-load at Caius, he confesses in his Christmas letter that he is only a third of the way into the libretto. By 14th February, he was getting worried about how behind he was getting with a work due to be performed in May Week. Yet by March 10th, he was looking forward to finishing Lucian, half of which was with the duplicators.

It was Peter’s classical education that had led him to the Vera Historia of Lucian of Samosata, a city on what would now be the Syrian-Turkish border, who has been described as the first novelist of Western civilisation. His True Story is an imaginative and fantastical account of space travel and of whales large enough to devour ships. Peter took a number of episodes from the book and initially laid out the tale into four parts:

Part 1: The Behest and the Caressed

Lucian and his friends are advised by the doctor to take a holiday. They sail away in a ship but, losing their bearings, arrive at an unknown island where tragedy befalls them in a curious vineyard.

Part II: The Arrest

A whirlwind carries the ship up into the sky to the Moon where Lucian and his crew are arrested. They assist King Endymion in a battle against the people of the sun and afterwards learn of the unusual organisation of lunar society.

Part III: The Oppressed

On regaining the terrestrial sea, the ship, with all aboard, is swallowed by an enormous whale. Two survivors from a previous shipwreck are found living in the monster and are rescued when the company eventually manage to get their ship out again.

Part IV: The Blest and the Rest

A beautiful island turns out to be the abode of the Blessed Dead. Rhadamanthus, the Eternal Judge, permits the party (in spite of being alive), to make a brief stay provided that they keep the peace. Unfortunately, one of them attempts to elope by boat with Helen of Troy, and the Damned, incarcerated on a neighbouring island, stage a mutiny at the sight of her. The living Greeks, deemed to have broken the peace are ordered to leave. They sail home refreshed. Their doctor, in the meantime, has died of overwork.

However, by the time the libretto and the music had begun to take shape, the work had evolved into five main sections with a number of sub-sections:

• No.1
  • The Outset
  • Bad Weather
• No.2                      
  • An Inscription
  • An Unusual Vineyard
  • A Misadventure
• No.3 A                  
  • A Storm
• No.3 B                   
  • The King of the Moon
• No.3 C                  
  • The Battle
  • Lunar gratitude
• No.3 D
  • Lunar Society
  • Lunar Children
  • Lunar Love
• No.4 A                  
  • Departure
  • The Whale
  • A melancholy Supper
  • Exploration
  • Inhabitants
  • The Old Man’s Story
  • Oppression
  • Rescue
  • Aftermath
• No.4 B                   
  • Escape
  • The Old Man’s Farewell
• No.5                      
  • Paradise scented
  • Paradise sighted
  • Arrest
  • The Court of the Dead
  • A fruitless visit
  • An elopement
  • News of a rebellion
  • The Heroes’ Alarm
  • A Sea Battle
  • A revival of Arts
  • The Culprit’s apology
  • Orders to depart
  • Good advice
  • Departure
  • Homecoming

The large number of characters involved in all these scenes gave scope for two main solo parts and a number of smaller roles, as well as a male and a mixed chorus. Peter had been expecting to conduct the performance, but, on this occasion, he found it easier to play the piano and allow the Organ Scholar, Martin Neary, to conduct. As he commented in a letter to his parents: “I hope it won’t have turned his head to have been on the podium.” As always, there are some marvellous tunes and some delightfully witty lines and verses as these two examples show:

Socrates was chopping some logic
when he had to answer the call.
But it shocked his scruples
To leave his pupils
Without refuting them all.

Aeneas was being pious
and Virgil was at his side.
They were checking the details,
Virgil retails;
But they left them unverified.

Manuscript score

Lyrics

Did you ever hear of Captain Wattle?
He was all for love, and a little for the bottle;
We know not, tho' we have tried to enquire,
if he ever did aught to set the Thames on fire:
Did he find the tree on which Macaroni may be grown?
Did he prove how to cure the Philosopher's Stone?
Did he learn his eggs from Bacon, or his onions from Boyle?
Get his key from Locke? Or expand from Hoyle?
No!
For your information, this is all we could learn:
That he loved Miss Roe, and she loved him in return.
That he loved her loved her loved her loved her
loved her loved her loved her loved her loved her loved her
he loved her and she loved him in return.
Ah! Yes, he loved Miss Roe, and she loved him in return.
Than sweet Miss Roe none e'er looked fiercer.
She had only one eye but that one eye was a piercer.
We sought for news of her life and upbringing:
Did she write, or mend stockings, or like hymn-singing?
Did she cook Sunday dinner with a steak on the coals?
Did she fight for women's rights on the score that they have souls?
Did she know about investments?
Did she fall for Paris modes?
Did she ride a horse, yet keep death off the roads?
No!
For your satisfaction this is all you may learn:
That she loved Captain Wattle and he loved her in return.
They were wedded, and he was master, depend on't! 
Tho' he'd only one leg, he'd a foot upon the end on't.
And when she'd fain seize the governmental bridle,
he took special care that foot should never lie idle.
So like ev'ry married pair 'twas "O Plague!" or "My dear chicken!"
With sometimes a-kissing, and sometimes a-kicking!
The the cordial for comfort she'd now and then try,
made her pie-eyed or dry-eyed, or have a good cry.
And this fact of the couple is the most we can learn:
when he kicked Miss Roe, she kicked him in return.
When he kicked her kicked her kicked her kicked her
kicked her kicked her kicked her kicked her
kicked her kicked her When he kicked her,
She kicked him in return!
Ah!
When he kicked Miss Roe, she kicked him in return.

Various versions of the original (sources not recorded):

Typeset score

in preparation.

Texts

The poems set in the cantata are:

1. Insanae et vanae curae - anon (semi-chorus and chorus)
2. No coward soul is mine - Emily Brontë (baritone solo, semi-chorus and chorus)
3. The shadow of Dawn - W. E. Henley (semi-chorus and chorus)
4. Once to every man & nation - J. Russell Lowell (baritone solo, semi-chorus and chorus)
5. Hast Thou Chosen, O my People - J. Russell Lowell (baritone solo)
6. Our Village - after Thomas Hood (semi-chorus and chorus)
7. Thou Hast Chosen - after J. Russell Lowell (baritone solo)
8. Tomorrow, & tomorrow, & tomorrow - William Shakespeare (baritone solo)
9. Ah Love! - Omar Khayyam (baritone solo, semi-chorus and chorus)

Review

See Philip Radcliffe's review of the première performance on 21st February 1953.

Peter Marchbank's analysis

In June 1952, Peter was invited by the Homerton College Madrigal Society to compose a choral work for their next Spring concert. At that time, the College was a Ladies’ Teacher Training College with a lively musical tradition under Allen Percival, later to be Principal of Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In response, Peter composed This Sorry Scheme of Things, a Cantata for ladies’ voices (sopranos and altos), a mixed semi-chorus and baritone solo accompanied by amplified harpsichord and piano. It may have been his original intention to orchestrate the accompaniment since the title-page mentions orchestra and states that “the accompaniment is arranged for piano, electric harpsichord (and percussion, if desired).” However, the orchestration appears never to have been undertaken. At this first performance, the baritone soloist was Norman Platt (later to be the Founder-Director of Kent Opera) with Thurston Dart at the harpsichord and Peter himself at the piano. From comments he made, it seems that Peter may have originally conceived the work in nine separate sections. The existing score, though, shows a through-composed work that must have been revised for the broadcast in 1957.

The Cantata is a setting of nine texts by a wide variety of writers and gives a partial insight into Peter’s political thinking during those years. Shortly before its broadcast in the first week of December 1957, he wrote:

“Mr Gaitskell said on the 2nd October 1957 when considering the future policy of the Labour Party: “We have to convince ordinary decent people who don’t think a great deal about politics. They are concerned about prices, jobs, rents, pensions and schools for their children. We are putting forward proposals on all these heads.” This echoes the attitude of Thomas Hood in his poem “Our Village”: parochial concerns. But concern about prices and jobs leads to the international race for markets and raw materials and thus to international conflict. But those that live in “Their Village” call this distantly “Foreign Affairs”.
It is a far cry from the dream Tennyson embodied in his poem “Locksley Hall” of “The Parliament of Man”, “The Federation of the World” and of “Universal Law”.
Is there a solution? Can Tennyson’s dream ever be realised?”

Alan Frank (then Editor of the Music Department of Oxford University Press) introduced the work in the Radio Times, describing Peter as one of the most versatile and refreshingly unacademic among the post-war group of young musicians at Cambridge. He considered that This Sorry Scheme of Things set an ambitious theme and that the composer had clothed his texts in straightforward music so that their argument may be readily understood. The cantata opens with a brisk setting of the anonymous text, Insanae et vanae curae, for women’s voices and semi-chorus. The marking is Allegro barbaro and the tonality is centred around B. This leads into a contemplative setting of No Coward Soul is Mine by Emily Bronte in Peter’s seemingly favourite key of D flat. The first verse is sung by the solo baritone who is joined by the gentlemen of the semi-chorus and the women’s choir for verse 2. In the last verse, the baritone is accompanied by the chorus and instrumentalists. Then comes The Shadow of Dawn by the Victorian poet, William Ernest Henley. The music is introduced by the harpsichord and the semi-chorus sing mainly in unison. This leads into the most substantial section, a setting of Once to every man and nation by the American Romantic poet and hymn-writer, J. Russell Lowell. The first verse is written for the full complement of singers, while the baritone is accompanied by the semi-chorus in verse 2. The third verse is scored for the baritone soloist and the women’s voices, with the semi-chorus interjecting the words “vanae” and “insanae”. The final verse is sung by the baritone soloist after which the music leads into “Hast thou chosen, O my people”, also by J.Russell Lowell, which is declaimed by the baritone soloist. The music subsides into the key of A minor for a setting of Thomas Hood’s poem “Our Village” in which the music is marked Quasi presto, scherzando. It is, in fact, a huge choral scherzo in which the refrain introducing the village is sung by the women’s voices and the non-human inhabitants are listed by the semi-chorus. The seventh section mirrors the fifth, being a declaimed setting by the baritone of J.Russell Lowell’s text “Thou hast chosen, O my people”. The music moves straight into “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”, a setting for the baritone soloist of words from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. From this, the music leads into the final section, taken from Omar Khayyam, “Ah love, could Thou and I with Fate conspire to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire”. The baritone sings the first verse with music similar to that of the Emily Bronte setting. In the second verse, the choruses join the baritone before the music ends quietly in D flat major.

Many considered this to be one of Peter’s most important works and it received some favourable reviews. The BBC’s New Music Panel was quick to accept the work for broadcasting in a letter from Frank Wade dated 15th June 1953. Eric Blom, writing in The Observer, noted that “Mr Tranchell’s musical idiom is often enterprising without ever going to extremes and it has a decided personal flavour.” The Times’s anonymous critic – could it have been William Mann, an old adversary of Peter’s from undergraduate days? – commented that “Peter Tranchell is a composer with something to say even if he is a little erratic in his way of saying it.” He noted its similarity with “….other modern extended choral works in being founded on an anthology of poems linked together by a somewhat tenuous line of thought epitomised in the title. The ethical core of this latest instance of the anthology-cantata is provided by verses of James Russell Lowell, but the best music is to be found in the setting of a poem by Emily Bronte, in a choral scherzo after Thomas Hood, and in a final verse of Omar Khayyam that embodies the title. He also noted the colourful contribution of the instrumentalists: “Tranchell writes for the harpsichord figuration that will not blend with the piano or with the voices, uses it sometimes as colour, but more often avails himself of its silver stridency to add momentum by its sheer impact on the more solid textures.”

For the broadcast in December 1957, the baritone soloist was Hervey Alan, the harpsichordist Raymond Leppard, and the pianist was Joseph Cooper. The BBC Singers were conducted by Leslie Woodgate. Peter was not happy with the performance and wrote to his parents: “… the BBC broadcast of my cantata ‘This Sorry Scheme of Things’ was lamentable. For a start, the BBC’s economy does not permit more than one ensemble rehearsal. It was under-rehearsed, nobody suggested that I should play it through to the conductor or attend a chorus rehearsal, the pianist played no end of wrong notes, the harpsichord was miked too close, the tempos were all wrong, none of the continuity passages I had written was used, and the words were of course inaudible.  When I heard the broadcast I was so angry that words failed me.” An unhappy ending to a work in which Peter had invested so much of himself.

The work does not appear as such in The Caian's records relating to Choir and Music in the Chapel, which suggests it was never used, however the fact that our surviving copy is marked "in 4" and "Precentor" strongly implies a performance.

It has been observed that the melodies appear to quote Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg, Act 2, Den Tag seh’ich erscheinen.

A scan of the original is presented here for study purposes only.

A&MR 168. Tune: Botley Road. Music: Peter Tranchell; Words: John Keble.

Typeset PDF score, thanks to David Stevens.

Typeset PDF score

Typeset and donated by David Stevens, 09/01/2026, for the choristers of Brecon Cathedral.

Peter Tranchell wrote this setting of Psalm 126 in 1962 for unison voices and organ. The antiphon is Isaiah XLIX, 13: "Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth, and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted".

In 1968 Tranchell simplified/arranged the 1962 versions of Psalms 15 and 126 for publication in New Songs for the Church: Book 1 produced in 1969 by Galliard Ltd for the Scottish Churches’ Council, which hoped that the use of the book might ‘inject into public worship a new kind of sincerity and gaiety’.

In 1980 he arranged the setting again, for Tenor solo, ATBrBB and organ, with a slightly altered organ part. 

In 2018 the Galliard setting* was republished along with Psalms 15 and 133 by CMS, as Peter Tranchell, Three Responsorial Psalms (CMS 046), and copies may be purchased via OUP at https://global.oup.com/academic/product/three-responsorial-psalms-9780193954151?cc=uk&lang=en&

* The CMS edition is identical to the Galliard 1969 edition, apart from some minor typos/omissions in the CMS edition, as follows:

• Bar 20 (&41) beat 1: organ pedal D flat should be D natural.
• Bar 56 (verse 5) voice: missing mp dynamic for "Turn our captivity...".
• Bar 60 voice: missing mf dynamic for "They that sow...".
• Bar 60 beat 3 voice and organ: missing crescendo hairpin.
• Bar 62 voice and organ: missing crescendo hairpin, leading to f.
• Bar 63 voice: missing accent on "joy".
• Bar 76 voice: missing mf dynamic for "He that now goeth...".
• Bar 79 voice: missing crescendo hairpin on "beareth forth".
• Bar 80 voice: missing decrescendo hairpin on "seed".
• Bar 81 voice and organ: missing crescendo hairpin on "doubtless come" and f dynamic for "joy".
• Bar 84 organ: the Galliard edition does not have a crescendo in the organ part.
• Bar 92 organ beat 1: missing crescendo hairpin.
• Bar 95: missing rit.

The CMS edition has corrected a typo in the Galliard edition, which had bar 5 beat 3 organ LH as an E flat.

Typeset PDF score

Words:

1. All the past we leave behind:
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson,
conqu'ring, holding, daring, venturing, so we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O Pioneers!

2. Not for delectations sweet,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment;
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

3  All the pulses of the world,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, these are of us, they are with us;
We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

4  On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, we must never yield or falter,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers

The original cover states "for A.A.T.Br.B.B. choir & organ", following Tranchell's convention at the time. In this typeset edition we have used "Tenor 2" instead of "Baritone". In 1982, Sopranos joined the choir, and it is recorded that the Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis in B was performed in services in that year, in 1983/4, and 1987/8 (see Music in the Caian). It might be presumed that the Sopranos sang the 1st Alto part, as no specific re-arrangement is known.

Ranges

Alto

Magnificat: G♯3 to F♯5
Nunc Dimittis: F♯3 to G5

Tenor

Magnificat:  C♯3 to A♯4 (optional B♯4)
Nunc Dimittis: F♯2 to A♯4

Bass

Magnificat: F♯2 to E4
Nunc Dimittis: F2 to F4

Free score

Click on the image below to access the full typeset PDF score. Please also see our guidance on the use of this score.

Original scores

We were kindly sent these scans of the original score, including annotations concerning phrasing and organ registration, and can make these available here for study purposes.

Tranchell Magnificat in B major original score

Tranchell Nunc Dimittis in B major original score

Variations for brass, percussion and organ, based on the Ten Commandments, by Peter Tranchell, composed 1956.

Free score (first draft)

Computerised playback:

Peter Marchbank wrote of the work:

A major event took place on Wednesday 22^nd February 1956 when the first performance of Decalogue (Variations for brass, percussion and organ) was given at a Cambridge University Music Society concert, conducted by Allen Percival, in St John’s College Chapel. Peter had originally considered writing a tone poem based on the Ten Commandments for soprano and full orchestra. He had even written out the title page and inserted the orchestration and bar lines before changing his mind and composing an ensemble piece for two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and organ. For the first performance, he provided the following programme note: “The programme of this work is taken from Exodus 20. A tremor is followed by a mysterious hush (“And God spoke”).  The plain octave implies “I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.”

The theme consists of the notes sounded at a performance of the two trumpets from the tomb of Tutankhamon. (“Out of the land of Egypt”). It is first heard already varied to convey “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” The other variations follow without a break;  “Shewing mercy unto them that love me”;  “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”;  “Remember the Sabbath day”. In this latter variation the glockenspiel is first heard and the sound of a coin falling on a drumhead (thirty pieces of silver) is intended to suggest betrayal.

Then: “Honour thy father and thy mother”; “Thou shalt not kill” announced by a quotation of Wagner’s “murder” motif in the tuba; “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. The latter starts with a concord to which a third note adds dissonance. The organ manuals are heard here as an intrusive element to the work. Elsewhere only the pedals are used.

Then: “Thou shalt not steal” in which a trombone ostinato represents an apparent innocence suddenly abandoned for a section of conflicting rhythms; “Thou shalt not bear false witness”  is a fugato; “Thou shalt not covet” employing Wagner’s “Ring” motif to signify worldly greed; and a finale reprising the idea “Shewing mercy to them that love me” and embodying Wagner’s motif “redemption by love”. In this, however, may be heard the mills of God grinding slow but sure.  At the end, the noise dies away, the theme appears in its basic form and the work closes with the plain octave “I am the Lord thy God”.

In an early undated draft of the work, Peter listed the notes of the trumpets found in Tutankhamen’s tomb. The silver trumpet could play the three notes E, G sharp and C above middle C, though the third note was somewhat flat, while the copper trumpet could play the three notes B, D, and F sharp, starting a 7^th above middle C.  At the same time, he jotted down a melody which he described as a “Cambridge folk-song”. And, in a note to himself, he characterises each Commandment:

Prologue	(wind, earthquake, fire)
1. No other Gods	(still small voice)
2. No graven images	(loud)
3. No taking Lord’s name in vain	(laughing)
4. Keep Sabbath	(soft)
5. Honour Father and Mother	(nobilmente)
6. Not kill	(brutal)
7. Not adultery	(voluptuous)
8. Not steal	(scherzo)
9. Not bear false witness	(pompous)
10. Not covet	(ironic)
Epilogue	(thunderings, lightnings, noise of trumpet, mountain smoking)

It is regrettable that one of Peter’s more ambitious works, lasting about twelve minutes, should have received only the one performance.

Click on the preview image below to access the PDF score in the original key.

We've also published an edition transposed up a minor third, which may better suit a wider range of voices.

Please refer to our guidance on the use of scores published by The Peter Tranchell Foundation.

The text is from Song of Songs, Chapter 7, verses 6, 11-12.

Guy Turner has let us know 

St Michael's Singers took this piece on tour. A local paper review said that the big build up culminating in the fff chord with the top C was so exciting it 'must have made the wedding night seem like an anti-climax'!

Click on the preview image below to access the full PDF score.

Please refer to our guidance on the use of scores published by The Peter Tranchell Foundation.

The version presented here has been typeset from the original manuscript held in the Gonville & Caius College Music Library and the Cambridge University Library.

Click on the preview image below to access the full PDF score.

Please refer to our guidance on the use of scores published by The Peter Tranchell Foundation.

Typeset score

Peter Marchbank said of the work:

Dodecafonia for solo piano can best be described as an exercise in using serial technique to emulate Berg’s warm romantic sound. Although it’s written in ink, there are no tempo or metronome markings so it is unlikely to have been performed. Among the sketches are four tone rows, each consisting of 2 groups of six notes which are played simultaneously in the first three bars of the work:

1. G A♭ B♭ B C D / E♭ F F# A C# E

2. G F# E E♭ D C / B A G# F D♭ B♭

3. E C# A F# F E♭ / D C B B♭ A♭ G 

4. B♭ D♭ F G# A B / C D E♭ E F# G

The music is in four sections. The brief opening section is probably slow, is in 4/4 and ends around the tonality of G. This leads into a 12/8 section in which duplets and quadruplets soon begin to take over before again ending around G. The third section, again in 4/4, has a good feel for pianistic style before ending on E flat. The final section is march-like and ends on a D flat.

Note that the four tone rows are

1. Prime
2. Inversion
3. Retrograde
4. Retrograde-Inversion

The recording below is a computerised performance by MuseScore notation software, playing a draft of the typeset score. No dynamics or pedalling have been added.

Uncle Sam was written in 1949, and was included in 'Hey nonny no!' in 1951 (songs for a revue by Cambridge Theatre Group: Lullaby ‑ It doesn’t mean a thing ‑ Uncle Sam ‑ I’m Bertha the bearded lady ‑ Advice to young ladies).

First line: Uncle Sam we’re in a jam.

The typeset score presented below was typeset from MS.Tranchell.2.488 and the melody was derived from the piano part. MS.Tranchell.2.489(1) includes three other versions of the text, each slightly different.

One typescript version of the text includes the following instructions:

(To be sung by two young men with quasi-dance motions here and there, à la seaside folderols) (Dress: White trousers, straw hats and blazers)

Free typeset score of Uncle Sam

Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, we’re in a jam.
You lend us money but things look black,
& it isn't funny ’cos we can't pay back.
Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, we're in a jam.
We’re hot beneath the collar
we’ve spent the bottom dollar
& there’s nothing more to follow from Uncle Sam.

You make us buy your luxury goods just when we shouldn't need’em,       
You give us plans for economy, then force us to exceed’em.
Our government buyers find you sweet, but somehow you mislead’em.
And step by step you're whittling down our heritage of Freedom!
Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, we’re in a jam.
We’re well aware you put us there, so have a care, Uncle Sam!

Britannia may rule the waves.
Who cares how the sea behaves?     
No matter how anyone scrimps and saves
we’re Uncle Sam’s financial slaves!
Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, we’re in a jam.
You’ve the tin, can afford to lend it
but it wears a bit thin, when you tell us how to spend it.
Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, we’re in a jam.
The Marshal Aid’s a cunning wheeze
to fix our trade just how you please.
Heaven help us, for we’re on our knees, 
at the mercy of Uncle Sam!

Stipulations, regulations, multiply ev’ry week.
Your talks with debtor nations are so charming tho’ oblique.
And when you’ve achieved our distress.
You tell us in your press
that John Bull & Uncle Sam are dancing cheek to cheek!

When we’ve something meaty, a trade treaty in the air,
then you get interested, but pretend not to interfere.
Of course there’s no ill feeling, but it’s just a bit revealing,
when you send us quietly reeling with a flea in our ear!

You’re building us up with films, with tinn’d herring and tinn’d beans.
We have to buy your most costly raw material for our machines,
But you’re making it clear we've nothing to fear, and we know just what that means!
We’re grateful for all this kindness with the Reds just behind the scenes!
What that’s for, is, we’re a cat’s paw!

We must lower our standard of living, our currency faces disaster,
We'll soon be a little colony with a transatlantic master,
and as our culture descends, we’re bound to be lifelong friends,
tho’ you tell us we’re apathetic, and ought to work harder and faster.

You can blame your constitution, and gently walk out of a pact.
Your claim to be a new nation still earns deferential tact,
for all are agreed, you’ve gained the lead with a nasty little fact:—
that teeny weeny Bikini, where the atom bombs are stacked! While as for Harwell,— Ah well!

Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, we’re in a jam.
It would be hateful to seem ungrateful 
but we’ve had our plateful of Uncle Sam!
Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, we’re in a jam.
Your plans for aid have lost their “glam”.
While we're sinking, you can scram, 
& all we can say is “Blast and Damn, 
the dollar's from Uncle Sam!”

First line: My philosophy may not agree.
First line of refrain: I've got a theory.

The typeset score presented below was typeset from MS.Tranchell.2.437 and the verse melody was deduced from the piano part. We also need to check MS.Tranchell.2.434 and MS.Tranchell.3.283, the latter said to include the verse melody separately written out.

Free typeset score of That's why I'm buying the ring

First line: People say I'm a “vamp”, dear, but they're wrong.

Free typeset score of A Thing or Two

A second version of the song also survives, with identical music but different lyrics. This version is titled Song from “The Dowager”.

Free typeset score of Song from “The Dowager”

First line: There's always been a certain something about the way I dream.

Free typeset score of You're exactly like a dream come true