Horrible Histories – Burke And Hare Song lyrics

This song tells the story of 2 famous killers Burke and hare. It describe show they got rid of the dead people they killed by giving the bodies to Dr Robert Knox who used the bodies to further his knowledge about human anatomy. Burke and his accomplice Hare set about murdering tramps and drunks on a regular basis. After 16 more transactions, in what became known as the West Port Murders, on 2 November 1828 Burke and Hare were caught, and the whole city convulsed with titillated horror, fed by ballads, broadsides and newspapers, at the terrible deeds of Burke & Hare. Hare turned King's evidence, and Burke was hanged, dissected and displayed.

And I earn my daily bread
By studying cadavers
Which are bodies not long dead

Before modern technology was available, people interested in learned in learning about anatomy relied much exclusively on dissection to get accurate information.

But would you care to slice this up
To see how corpses work?

Donation of bodies wasn't unheard of, but it was unusal. The church believed somehow that a dissected person couldn't go to Heaven.

Well it's always a palaver
Getting hold of a cadaver
So I said yes I'll ahve her
Oh, it's a he!

Other than donation, the only legal source of bodies were executed criminals so the need was greater than the supply.

Then Burke and Hare turned up again
My, how convenient!
Another slab of fresh
Human organs, bone and flesh

Obviously the better condition the body was in the more it was worth. Body snatching was rampant, but bodies dug out of graves weren't usually in the best shape.

I paid them lots of money
Bodies came from everywhere

He paid them the equivalent of a month's wages for each body, no questions asked.

They seemed such cultured gentlemen
I never did suspect
That Burke and Hare were not so nice
I really should have checked

Probably not true. If Knox was as skilled an anatomist as he was considered to be, he must have suspected something. Then again, he had a strong incentive to ignore the evidence he saw.

Then one day a policeman came
Asked if I've seen a chap
I hadn't, but days later
His corpses turned up in my lap

Forensic science of course, was almost non-existent in the early nineteenth century. Still, a large number of disappearances in relative small area certainly raised suspicion.

It seemed that these acquaintances
Of Burke and Hare actually
Were not their friends and
Did not always die naturally

Burke and Hare were murderers. They were never grave robbers as some people think.

The two men were arrested
But one of them set free

The prosecution didn't think there was enough evidence to convict both men, so Hare confessed and testified against Burke in exchange for immunity.

Poor Burke was hanged
But happily his corpse was sent to me

Burke's corpse was actually given to Knox's chief competitor Professor Monro. A bit of artistic license was taken there.

Inspired by this song, I just watched the 2010 film "burke and hare. " it was. Okay. Silly. Definitely not very accurat. Lots of the "silly" signs, there would have been, and not a lot of the "true! " ones. But I think maybe they knew about this song, because farnaby got a cameo, and there was a shot with a giant magnifying glass a lot like the one in this video. So that was cool.