OK, so let's unpack this. Usually when we talk
about Victorian entertainment, we kind of, we
go straight for the big polished stuff, you know.
The high production value things. Exactly. You
think of the Savoy operas, the Doily Cart Company.
I mean, the whole massive cultural footprint
of Gilbert and Sullivan. Which totally makes
sense. They're the titans of the genre, the Mikado,
HMS Pinafore. The Pirates of Penzance. Yeah,
these are just plays. They really did define
an entire era of British culture. Right. But
here's where it gets, for me, really interesting.
For this deep dive, I want to kind of ignore
the music. I want to ignore Sullivan entirely,
actually. Okay, bold move. We're going to strip
all that away and go back to, like... The laboratory.
We're looking at the raw, maybe even chaotic
source code that W .S. Gilbert wrote years before
he was a household name. That is a great way
to frame it. You're talking about the Babb ballads.
The Babb ballads. Looking at the research, it
honestly feels like finding the sketchbook of
a master architect before they built the skyscraper.
But it's weirder than a sketchbook. It's more
like a collection of these dark... twisted nursery
rhymes that somehow explain everything about
Victorian satire. It's effectively the primordial
soup of his career. If you want to understand
that topsy -turvy logic of the famous operas,
you absolutely have to understand these poems
first. They're the foundation. To just call them
light verse, I think that's selling them a bit
short. Okay, so let's set the scene then. We
are not in the Subway Theater yet. It's 1861.
Gilbert is young. He's a barrister, which sounds
fancy, but he's not really getting much legal
work. No, not at all. And he's desperately trying
to break into writing. So he's writing for a
magazine. Right. It's called Fun. And the context
here is pretty important. Fun was the scrappy
underdog, the rival to the really famous Punch
magazine. Okay, so Punch is the establishment.
Totally. And Fun is trying to be a bit looser,
a bit more experimental. So Gilbert submits this
small contribution, a short article, and a little
half -page drawing on wood. Just standard gig
work. He probably thought, okay, that's that.
Maybe I'll get paid enough for dinner. Exactly.
But then, a day or two later, the printer of
the paper actually knocks on his door. Oh, wait.
He brings compliments from the editor and then
just drops this bombshell. He asks Gilbert to
contribute a column of copy and a half page drawing
every single week. Okay, that's a lot. And here's
the kicker. For the term of his natural life.
For the term of his natural life? Yeah. That
sounds less like a job offer and more like a
prison sentence. Gilbert pretty much felt that
way. He told the story later saying, I hardly
knew how to treat the offer. I had poured all
I knew into that short article. I was empty.
I was empty. Wow. I feel that in my soul. I think
anyone who creates anything can relate to that
panic. You do one good thing, you empty the tank,
and then they say, great, do it again next week.
Forever. Precisely. He felt he had totally exhausted
himself. He literally thought he didn't know
anything else. But, you know, the printer encouraged
him and Gilbert said he would try. And what's
so fascinating here is that despite feeling empty,
he found that there was, and this is his quote,
a little left. And that little left turns out
to be enough for hundreds of columns over 10
years. That is, that's just wild stamina. It
is. And that pressure cooker environment is exactly
where the Babb ballads were born. He needed content
fast and he needed it constantly. He didn't have
time to be precious about it. Right. No waiting
for the muse. None. He just had to be prolific.
So before we get into the weirdness of the poems
themselves, we have to talk about the branding.
Babb. Where on earth does that come from? Because
for a satirist writing this biting content, Bab
sounds incredibly soft. It's surprisingly personal,
actually. Bab was Gilbert's childhood nickname.
It was short for baby. Oh. Seriously? So he's
signing these cynical poems with his baby name?
Well, there is a theory that it might also be
a bit of a nod to Charles Dickens, who used the
pen name Boz. Ah, Boz and Babb. Okay, that makes
sense. But yeah, there's a definite contrast
there. He started signing his drawings Babb around
1866, but he didn't actually use the title The
Babb Ballads until the first collected edition
in 1869. Okay, so let's get into the content.
You said earlier this is where he developed his
style. We keep using this phrase topsy -turvy.
It becomes the trademark of Gilbert and Sullivan
later, but it starts here. What does that actually
mean in these poems? This is the absolute core
of Gilbert's genius. The humor isn't just random.
Randomness doesn't have rules. Gilbert's topsy
-curvy style is about the rigorous application
of rules to a completely insane premise. Okay,
walk me through that. Gilbert will set up a ridiculous
premise, something completely absurd. But then
he works out the consequences with this strict,
cold logic. The characters in the poems, they
don't know they're in a comedy. They behave with
mathematical precision. They just started from
the wrong variable. So the situation itself is
the joke, not necessarily a punchline at the
end. Exactly. If you just accept that impossible
first step, everything else that follows makes
perfect logical sense. It creates this dissonance
that's incredibly funny, but also... Well, if
you look closely, it's quite cynical. Cynical.
Very. Gilbert had a pretty cynical and satirical
view of the world. He wasn't writing these heartwarming
tales. He was poking fun at authority, at social
norms, at human nature itself. We should probably
look at an example. The sources mention The Yarn
of the Nancy Bell. That's probably the most famous
one, right? It is, yeah. And it's the perfect
example of that cynicism. It's a story about
cannibalism, essentially. Right. But it's told
in this really jaunty, upbeat, nautical rhythm.
Yes, I was reading this one. It's the one where
the narrator meets this old sailor who claims
to be the cook, the captain, the mate, and the
entire crew. Because he ate all of them. That's
the one. Oh, I am the cook and the captain bold
and the mate of the Nancy Brig. It's horrific
if you actually think about what's happening.
Yeah, it's survival cannibalism. But Gilbert
frames it with this bouncy rhythm and this strict
internal logic about the hierarchy of who got
eaten and when. It's just bizarre. It's like
a horror movie directed by a nursery rhyme author.
That's a great description. And what's interesting
is that Punch Magazine actually rejected this
poem. Oh, they did? Yeah. They thought it was
too cannibalistic for their readers. But Fun
Magazine took it and it became a huge hit. Which
brings up the visual side of this. Yeah. We can't
really talk about the bad bellows without the
drawings. Gilbert illustrated these himself.
And they weren't exactly like fine art masterpieces,
were they? No, not at all. And that was the whole
point. They were comic drawings. They were integral
to the identity of the work. They often had characters
with these huge heads and spindly little limbs,
very expressive, very grotesque. Looking at them,
they remind me almost of like Tim Burton sketches.
But from the 19th century, they're scratchy and
manic. That's a fair. comparison. They matched
the topsy -turvy nature of the text perfectly.
And people loved them. They were a sensation.
And we have to remember, these weren't just being
read quietly in a library. The sources say they
were read aloud at private dinner parties, public
banquets, even in the House of Lords. Can you
imagine that? Some stuffy lord standing up and
reading The Bishop of Rumtifu. It just speaks
to how deeply Gilbert tapped into the Victorian
psyche. He was mocking their stuffiness, but
with such wit that they just claimed him as their
own. You mentioned Gentle Alice Brown. That's
another great title. The titles alone just give
you a flavor of the whimsy. Oh, for sure. The
Bishop of Rumtifu is about a colonial bishop
who learns to dance to please his flock. Again,
it's that collision of a secret authority figure
and completely absurd behavior. Which brings
us to the big connection. If you're a fan of
the Mikado or Pirates of Penzance, you're basically
listening to bad ballads remixes, aren't you?
In so many ways, yes. The ballads served as a
massive recycling bin for the operas. A recycling
bin, that's a polite way to put it. Well, creative
reuse. He recycled pla - plot elements, characters,
even entire songs. The ballads were his testing
ground. So if a character worked in a poem? Yep.
If a character type worked, say, a timid curate
or a boastful soldier, he would just lift that
archetype and drop it right into an opera five
years later. So the ballads are like the proto
-universe for the operas. Precisely. And Gilbert
knew it. He wasn't shy about this self -plagiarism
at all. In 1890, when the operas were huge, he
published a book called Songs of a Savoyard.
What was that exactly? He took 69 lyrics from
the famous Savoy operas, gave them new titles
and published them as poems. But here's the kicker.
He added Bab illustrations to them. No way. So
he retroactively turned the operas back into
ballads. He almost called the volume the Savoy
Ballads. He was basically merging the two worlds,
acknowledging that the DNA was identical. Wow.
He even included some deleted lyrics from Iolanthe.
It created this impression of one giant integrated
body of work. That is fascinating. It's like
he was saying, the music is great, sure, but
the words. The words are pure bab. That's exactly
it. He was visually branding the high art operas
with the same chaotic energy as his low art magazine
poems. But this all leads us to what I think
is the most dramatic part of the story. We could
call it the war of the illustrations. It plays
out like this psychological drama about an artist
versus his own work. It is dramatic, and it happens
much later, in 1898. Gilbert is older now. He's
wealthy. He's a pillar of the establishment.
And he decides to release a definitive volume
combining the bad ballads and songs of a Savoyard.
A greatest hits collection. The complete works.
Right. But he made an incredibly controversial
decision. He decided to redraw over 200 of the
illustrations. Wait, why? The original drawings
were iconic. That's like... coloring in a classic
black and white movie. Or George Lucas adding
CGI to the original Star Wars. That is exactly
what it was like. But Gilbert didn't see it that
way. He looked back at his early work, those
wild, grotesque drawings from his fun magazine
days, and he felt they were too extravagant.
He said they aired gravely. Aired gravely. Was
he embarrassed by them? He called them a defect
that he wanted to correct. He wanted to provide
something more polished, more refined. He thought
he was fixing his youthful mistakes, making the
art match his new status as a serious gentleman
of the theater. Let me guess. The public did
not agree. Not even a little bit. The readers
hated the new drawings. They missed that raw,
crude energy of the originals. The new ones were
technically better art, maybe? More anatomically
correct or something. Right, smoother. But they
lacked the Bab spirit. They were just too safe.
That is such a classic artist tragedy. You get
so good at your craft that you lose the thing
that made you special in the first place. You
refine the soul right out of the work. And it
took a long, long time to rectify. For decades,
the refined 1898 versions were the standard because
that was Gilbert's final wish, so to speak. It
wasn't until 1970, over 70 years later, that
an editor named James Ellis finally restored
the original drawings alongside the text. Justice
for the original Bab. Indeed. Ellis just discarded
the refined versions and gave us back the chaotic
originals. He realized you just can't have the
poem without the extravagant drawing. They are
one and the same. Now, speaking of James Ellis
and scholars. Yeah. Just unpacking what even
counts as a bad ballad. Seems like a total nightmare.
Yeah. It's not like Gilbert kept a neat diary
of everything he wrote. Oh, it's a mess. He didn't
keep a perfect list. Remember, he was just churning
these out weekly for a magazine. Right. He was
thinking about the deadline, not posterity. Exactly.
And many of the early pieces in Fun were completely
unsigned. So how do we even know what he wrote?
It's pure detective work. Scholars have to look
at stylistic grounds. Does it sound like Gilbert?
Does it have that topsy -turvy logic? Or they
look for the Babs signature on the drawing itself.
But even the numbering is weird, right? I read
that he started numbering them at 60. Yes. When
he finally started numbering the poems in fun,
the very first one he numbered was Mr. William,
and he labeled it 60. So where are numbers 1
through 59? That is the million -dollar question.
It left scholars to just guess which previous
poems constituted the first 59. Or maybe he was
just guessing himself. It's a puzzle that may
never be perfectly solved. It adds to the mystique,
though. It's like there are lost ballads out
there somewhere. There likely are, and some are
still disputed. But what we do know is that by
1870, the output slowed down. A lot. Because
he was getting famous for the plays and operas.
Exactly. His dramatic career just took off. The
last poem he personally considered a Babb ballad
was Old Paul and Old Tim in 1871. After that,
he was just too busy being Gilbert and Sullivan
to be Babb. It's so interesting to trace that
trajectory. He starts as this guy begging for
work, feeling empty, forcing himself to write
comedy every week. He builds this massive reservoir
of characters and plots. Then he mines that reservoir
to become rich and famous. And then finally,
he tries to whitewash the original reservoir
because it's not dignified enough anymore. That's
the arc. And I think the BAB ballads really offer
two distinct lessons for anyone interested in
the creative process. The first is about that
stamina. Gilbert thought he was done after one
article. He wasn't. He dug deep and found a way
to turn his anxiety and his cynicism into a style,
that logical absurdity that went on to define
Victorian humor. And he did it by leaning into
the weirdness, by being topsy -turvy. Yes. But
if we connect this to the bigger picture, the
story of the illustrations is the second and
maybe more important lesson. The redraws. Yeah.
Gilbert tried to fix his youthful work. He wanted
to make it respectable. But the audience knew
better. They knew that the magic was in the unnecessary
extravagance. That's a great phrase. Unnecessary
extravagance. He used that as a criticism of
himself, didn't he? He did. But for us, for the
reader, that extravagance is the whole point.
And this raises a really important question for
all of us, I think. Is there a danger in becoming
too polished? Ooh, that is interesting. You know,
we often strive for perfection, for refinement,
but sometimes the raw, unpolished energy, the
thing we're maybe slightly embarrassed by from
our youth, is exactly what makes the work magic.
Gilbert spent his later years trying to erase
the Babb style, but Babb... is what the world
wanted i think you're absolutely right he crossed
that line in 1898 he forgot that the bab sketches
with all their ugliness and weird proportions
they were honest the polished versions were just
polite and nobody remembers gilbert for being
polite that is a fantastic takeaway sometimes
you just have to embrace the crew drawing and
the crazy rhyme scheme because that's where the
soul of the thing is precisely so here's the
takeaway for you listening if you want to understand
the dna of musical theater, or just Victorian
humor, don't just listen to the overtures. Go
find a collection of the bad ballads. And specifically,
check the publication date or the editor. Make
sure you're getting the James Ellis edition or
one that guarantees the original drawings. Accept
no substitutes. Don't let 1898 Gilbert bore you.
Go for the 1860s chaos. Absolutely. Dive into
the topsy -turvy world. You might find it makes
a lot more sense than the real world sometimes.
thanks for joining us on this deep dive it's
been a pleasure