Ted, Woody, and Junior Releases Gigs Lyrics Comments Tablature

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Author
Robyn Hitchcock
According to our records, Robyn has played this song 123 times, most recently at Musical Instrument Museum on May 23, 2025. He first performed it at Ronnie Scott's on February 02, 1986, 39 years and 3 months earlier.

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From Robyn on Instagram in 2019
New York City, 1965, was plagued by power cuts and water shortages. Whilst Bob Dylan, Brian Jones and Andy Warhol dealt with the former by vamping around Nico in their Raybans, elsewhere in NYC three other guys saved water by showering together in a petite bath-tub. Plumbing (like so much else) has changed drastically since the 1960s, so it may be hard for the 21st Century mind to grasp what a feat it was for Ted, Woody and Junior to manoeuvre themselves into one bath, backs demurely to the camera, and lather up.

I discovered this one damp November a decade later, whilst waiting to play a floor spot (open mic night) at the Portland Arms in Cambridge. Browsing in a seedy charity shop at dusk, I chanced upon a mildewed faux-bodybuilding mag called Muscleboy. Bodybuilding was hardly my jam, but something about Muscleboy (and The Young Physique, its companion mag) caught my eye. A few pages in from the Charles Atlas types at the front, arcane tableaux began to appear: a man clad only in a Stetson hat and cowboy boots grinned over his shoulder - another posed underwater with a lobster as his swimming costume. By the time I reached the saga of Ted, Woody and Junior I was hooked. Had Warhol read these periodicals, I wondered? Had Dylan himself? Those were different times. “I’ve got something stronger, if yer want it” coughed the sleazy proprietor, wheezing a toxic blend of chilly Fenland air and tobacco smoke into his dim-lit, fungal store. I assured him these two items were plenty and paid him my 10 pence. Two weekends later, my roommate and I sang this byline from Muscleboy onstage at the Portland Arms, in an acapella English folk style : “A brand new model from Bruce this month - Blackie Preston...the rigors of hard range work have given him the perfectly developed body of a man”
They loved us, as always... In 1985, two decades on from that epic year in New York, I was on a railway platform when this song appeared, almost fully formed, in my head.

Lyrics

Ted, Woody, and Junior
Stand in the bath together
And cover each other with soap
Cover each other with soap

Ted, Woody, and Junior
Stand in the frosty garden
They can feel their sinews harden
So they cover each other with leaves
Cover each other with leaves...
Yeah, they cover each other with leaves
Cover each other with leaves

It's a wonderful world
With a lot of strange men
Who are standing around
And they're all wearing towels

Ted, Woody, and Junior
Were disappointments to their fathers
But they had a way with lather
And they covered each other with soap
Covered each other with soap
Yeah, they covered each other with soap
Covered each other with soap

Ted, Woody, and Junior..

Tablature

C...   Em...   G:

     F  F       Dm      C... F... C
Ted, Woody, and Juuuuuunior
      F  F   C
stand in the bath together
    Dm
and cover each other with soap
                      C... F... C... Em... G:
cover each other with soap

     F  F       Dm      C
Ted, Woody, and Juuuuuunior
      F  F   C
Stand in the frosty garden
         F    F     C
They can feel their sinews harden
        Dm
So they cover each other with leaves
                      C       F... C
cover each other with leaves...
                                 Dm
Yeah, they cover each other with leaves
                      C       F... C 
cover each other with leaves

(The tricky middle bit)

       Fm
It's a wonderful world
       D#
With a lot of strange men
        A#              F
Who are standing arouuu-nd
            C                G
And they're all wearing tooooowels

F... C... F... C... F... C... Em... G:

     F  F       Dm      C... F... C
Ted, Woody, and Juuuuuunior
          F    F     C
Were disappointments to their fathers
         F   F C
But they had a way with lather
         Dm
And they covered each other with soap
                        C... F... C
covered each other with soap
                                   Dm
Yeah, they covered each other with soap
                        C... F... C... Em... G:
covered each other with soap
     F  F       Dm                    C
Ted, Woody, and Juuuuuuuu...(pause)...nior...

[Transcribed by JH3]