These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You) is a old standard written by Eric Maschwitz, writing under the pseudonym Holt Marvell, with music by Jack Strachey. It has been covered by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and many other famous crooners. I am very sorry, but it is a fairly boring song, and I don't care about it.

What I am interested in is dumb kids' songs, things like There's a Place in France, Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I'll go eat worms, and Miss Lucy had a Steamboat. They are dumb, often a bit crude, and are very flexible in what exactly the lyrics are. These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You) is also one of these... although, I think it is safe to say, one constructed and passed along by young adults, or perhaps, old adults. Here is one approximation of the lyrics, as pieced together from oral histories collected from the corners of the internets.

A lipstick stain upon an old french letter,
That little sore that simply won't get better,
How Penicillin stings,
These foolish things, remind me of you.

The flat we shared above a gents' urinal,
The thrills you gave were simply endocrinal,
But how the odor of it clings,
These foolish things, remind me of you.

Those evening sessions when we both got plastered,
And that time when you punched some bastard,
The taste that vomit brings,
These foolish things, remind me of you.
There was the sofa bed, which we kissed on,
your mother's aspidestra which we pissed on,
There'll be no blooms this spring,
These foolish things, remind me of you.

I started researching this expecting something slightly less blue, and found something much more so. This is the milquetoast version; if you want something a bit dirtier, you can find many other versions here or in the Fleet Air Arm Song Book. Both are considerabally NSFW.


I apologize, and hope that someone more cultured than I will provide the writeup that the original song deserves.