Q: Oh Mary, can ah run ye hame? (or, What's the meaning of "Cod Liver Oil and Orange Juice"?)

A: Currently in constant rotation, between my iTunes and my brain, is "Cod Liver Oil and Orange Juice," an ode to drunken hookups performed in 1966 by Scottish folk-revivalist Hamish Imlach. Between the Scot slang and Imlach's Glaswegian accent, I barely know what half the song means, and yet I find it entirely irresistible.

Hamish Imlach
Cod Liver Oil and Orange Juice
Hamish Imlach [OOP], 1966

I'm still getting a bunch of hits for my post on the history and meaning of "For What It's Worth", so I thought it might be useful to do the same for "Cod Liver Oil..." But after Googling (and Urban Dictionary-ing) around for a while, I discovered that extensive annotations are already available. Thanks, the Internet!

According to those notes, the song evolved as a take-off of an American spiritual song, "Virgin Mary Had a Little Baby"; the Mary in "Cod Liver Oil" gets pregnant by entirely non-immaculate means in a slum basement. As may be obvious to Brits and/or old people, cod liver oil and orange juice was a concoction commonly served to promote the health of pregnant women and children during WWII. The cod-liver cocktail is still recommended for sufferers of arthritis, and still tastes terrible.


The song is one of many reasons to check out the wonderfully eclectic Transatlantic Story, a four-disc anthology compiling highlights from a British label, Transatlantic Records, that was a favorite of hippies and other drug addicts in the 60s and 70s. The set is apparently out of print, but it's available via Amazon Marketplace for a cool $20.88.