Jeremy Taylor Songs - Ag Pleez Deddy Lyrics

Jeremy Taylor - Ag Pleez Deddy

Jeremy Taylor - Ag Pleez Deddy Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Ag Pleez Deddy
Released: 1961

Ag Pleez Deddy Lyrics

Ag Pleez Deddy Song Chart

As might be suspected from its title, "Ag Pleez Deddy" is a vernacular song - written partly in Afrikaans. Oxford graduate Jeremy Taylor went to South Africa as a teacher, but this ditty - which he wrote in 1961 - is said to have outsold Elvis Presley. Subtitled "Ballad Of The Southern Suburbs" (in brackets), it was released on the Gallotone label backed by Jo'Burg Talking Blues."

It was also used in the revue Wait A Minim!, and appears on the original soundtrack, wherein it runs to 3 minutes 54 seconds.

Jeremy Taylor said of this song: "I was teaching at a school in the southern suburbs of Johannesburg, and I was enchanted by the way they spoke English. So I wrote them a song. It had some strange effects, because a lot of people were offended, especially the parents. The government didn't like it either because it was mixing the languages; they didn't want black and white to mix, and they didn't want English and Afrikaans to mix either. But the kids loved it, and so did South Africa in the end."

An alternative recording on the Gallotone label is credited to Bali-Taylor, and the song is called simply "Ballad Of The Northern Suburbs." The recording is credited to Valerie Miller and Taylor. A third (and live) recording, by Taylor alone on the Decca label, contains "the missing last verse." Herein, the title is given (verbatim) as:

"Ag, Pleez Daddy
Ballad of the Southern Suburbs"
(thanks, Alexander Baron - London, England, for all above)