[78-L] Dept of meaningless lyrics?

[Malcolm Rockwell]

Geoffrey Wheeler wrote:
> "leave you with nothing but a fine tooth comb"?
> ("Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home?").
>
> Perhaps the tooth in the comb is just short of being mint and is thus 
> “fine.” Must have been a large tooth, perhaps a T-Rex tooth. The song 
> doesn’t say what the comb was made of, perhaps marzipan.
> _______________________________________________
>   
I think the lyric refers to the same thing that the tune "Pick Poor 
Robin Clean" does, namely Phthirus Pubis, or as we call 'em in Hawaii, 
ukus. If Bill got thrown out with nothing but a fine tooth comb it 
implies that he's been unfaithful, so to speak. But the lyric further 
suggests that she knows it wasn't him who was unfaithful, it was her, 
and that he should come back, minus the aforementioned livestock. Thus 
the use of the fine toothed comb.
Not meaningless a'tall.
Mal