"Lloyd George Knew My Father" is a 20th-century English schoolboy folk song. The simple lyrics consist of the phrase ''"

Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for lea ...

knew my father/Father knew Lloyd George"'' sung to the tune of "

Onward, Christian Soldiers "Onward, Christian Soldiers" is a 19th-century English hymn. The words were written by Sabine Baring-Gould in 1865, and the music was composed by Arthur Sullivan in 1871. Sullivan named the tune "St Gertrude," after the wife of his friend Erne ...

". In the song, the two lines referring to Lloyd George are repeated incessantly, until boredom sets in. There are no lyrics other than those two lines. The origin of the song is not known but there are several theories, one that it began as a

music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Bri ...

song making an oblique reference to

David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during t ...

's supposed

womanizing Promiscuity is the practice of engaging in sexual activity frequently with different partners or being indiscriminate in the choice of sexual partners. The term can carry a moral judgment. A common example of behavior viewed as promiscuous by man ...

proclivities (with the right timing and intonation and a well-placed wink, "father" could be taken to mean "mother", and "

knew KNEW may refer to: * The ICAO code for New Orleans Lakefront Airport, located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States * KNEW (AM), a radio station on 960 kHz, licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, that carries the KNEW call s ...

" in the biblical sense of sexual relations). The ''Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations'' attributes the song to Tommy Rhys Roberts QC, the son of a former law partner of Lloyd George. According to

David Owen David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen, (born 2 July 1938) is a British politician and physician who served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs as a Labour Party (UK), Labour Party MP under James Callaghan from 1977 t ...

, it was a

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

marching song.

Notes

References

English children's songs English folk songs Youth culture in the United Kingdom 20th century in England 20th-century songs Cultural depictions of David Lloyd George Songs about prime ministers of the United Kingdom {{folk-song-stub