This song stopped me in my tracks when Marc Riley played the Villon Song by Stick In The Wheel on Radio 6. As by name, so by nature - it's a song of villainy and criminality. The video shares that same dark nature but I didn't know that until I unravelled the lyrics.

Not only are the lyrics weird, they hark back to the same era when Tom and Jerry got their names.

Have a listen, then have a read.

Villon’s Straight Tip To All Cross Coves

I

Suppose you screeve, or go cheap-jack

Or fake the broads Or fig a nag

Or thimble-rig Or knap a yack

Or pitch a snide Or smash a rag

Suppose you duff or nose and lag

Or get the straight, and land your pot

How do you melt the multy swag?

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

II

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack;

Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;

Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack;

Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag

Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag;

Rattle the tats, or mark the spot

You cannot bank a single stag:

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

III

Suppose you try a different tack,

And on the square you flash your flag

At penny-a-lining make your whack,

Or with the mummers mug and gag?

For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag

At any graft, no matter what!

Your merry goblins soon stravag

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

The Moral.

It’s up-the-spout and Charley-Wag

With wipes and tickers and what not!

Until the squeezer nips your scrag,

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

The booze and blowens cop the lot.

Flash cant with Tom and Jerry

Straight Tip To All Cross Coves was written in 1884 by William Ernest Henley in the underworld slang of the day. It's re-write of a poem originally written by a 15th century thief, murderer and poet, Francois Villon. He wrote verse about French gangsta life while waiting out his various prison sentences.

Strangely there's a Tom and Jerry connection with low cant that I wrote about here - Tom and Jerry's long history with the old ultra-violence goes back to London -

On 15 July 1821, Egan published Life in London, ‘a faithful portrait of high and low life in east and west London'. Egan’s stories were about two men and their friends as they went on rambles and sprees and Egan incorporated the slang of the day, much it coming from the boxing world. The principal characters in Egan’s urban adventures were Jerry Hawthorn and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom – Tom and Jerry.

In 1821 W.T. Moncrieff, a successful dramatist and theatre manager of the day wrote a play “Tom and Jerry, or, Life in London” based on Egan’s Life of London characters. The play with its lively pugilistic slang was so successful it was taken to the US where it launched a Tom and Jerry craze.

Cheap, rough taverns were ‘Tom and Jerry shops’, ‘Tom and Jerry gangs’ went on ‘Tom-and-Jerry frolics’, which usually featured young men in the picking of drunken fights and the destruction of property. Tom and Jerry became proverbial for young men causing disorder.

Yes, but what does it all mean?

I rummaged through dictionaries of canting songs and such like and wrote up a much more prosaic version than Henley's. It lacks the colour but I think it has the spirit. 

(There are a couple of terms that are hard to parse - 'rig the cups' refers to the street con of the shell game using three cups or thimbles. 'Fleecing your mark' refers to 'conning your sucker'. Hopefully enough of the meter and rhythm survived my mauling so you can chant along á Villon.)

Villon’s Straight Tip To All Cross Coves

Paraphrased by A. Michael Collins

I

Suppose you forge or hawk your tat

Or cheat at cards or fix a nag

Rig the cups or lift a watch

Pass false coin or dodgy dosh

Suppose you fence or snitch and yack

Or win at cards and take the pot

How do you spend your iffy swag?

Drink and the ladies take the lot

Drink and the ladies take the lot

II

Fiddle or fence, steal or pimp

Or pawn for gelt or con the street

Breaking and entry and nicking the cash

Work the shows or giving a thrash

Do inside jobs, touts or scams

Rolling the dice or fleecing your mark

You cannot bank a single buck

Drink and the ladies take the lot

Drink and the ladies take the lot

III

Suppose you take a different way,

And going straight you start a trade

Write like a hack to make your whack

Or go on stage to gurn and gag

For nothing, for nowt the cash you snag

At any graft, no matter what!

Your merry coins will flee your bag

Drink and the ladies take the lot

Drink and the ladies take the lot

The Moral.

All pawned and gone and turned to dreck

With hankies and watches and what not!

Until that noose nips your neck

Drink and the ladies take the lot

The drink and the ladies take the lot.

Mike's moral: Crime may not pay but occasionally it rhymes.