World Wide Words provides the following explanation:
Some of the references are now quite opaque, but we can take a fair shot at a few. In the second verse, the City Road was, still is, a well-known street in London, more than a mile long. The Eagle was a famous public house and music hall, which lay near the east end of the road on the corner of Shepherdess Walk; this had started its life as a tea-garden, but was turned into a music hall in 1825 (one of the very first); it ended its days as a Salvation Army centre and was pulled down in 1901. However, it was replaced by another pub, which still exists under the same name.
The City Road had a pawnbroker’s shop near its west end and to pop was a well-known phrase at the time for pawning something. So the second verse says that visiting the Eagle causes one’s money to vanish, necessitating a trip up the City Road to Uncle to raise some cash. But what was the weasel that was being pawned? Nobody is sure. Some suggest it was a domestic or tailor’s flat-iron, a small item easy to carry. My own guess is that it’s rhyming slang: weasel and stoat = coat. Either way, it seems to have been a punning reinterpretation of the catch line from the older dance.
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Pop goes the weasel
Commemorated ati
Eagle Tavern - song
Up and down the City Road In and out the Eagle That's the way the money goe...
Other Subjects
George Frideric Handel
Composer. Born Halle, Germany. Became Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover, soon to become George I of Great Britain. Moved to London in 1712. A governor of the Foundling Hospital. Moved into ...
G. D. Gardner
Student of Trinity College of Music, killed in WW1.
Red Bus Recording Studios
Founded by Eliot Cohen, Ellis Elias and Leslie Grade this studio has recorded Bananarama, Duran Duran, Gloria Gaynor, Billy Ocean, Sinitta, Spandau Ballet, Tina Turner, Alison Moyet, Boney M, Goldf...
Sir Charles Stanford
Composer, music teacher, and conductor. Born Dublin as Charles Villiers Stanford. Appointed Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music in 1883, a position he held for the rest of his li...
Judy Garland
born Frances Ethel Gumm in Minnesota, USA. She came to London in 1951, and in 1957 for a season at the Dominion, and again in 1960. Her last visit was in 1968 to appear at the Talk of the Town (now...
Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them