“Make way, make way, for the rowdy-dowdy boys”.’

15:47 Jul 29, 2019 

But the point in this context is the humorous contrast: the old queen, symbol of the ultimate in British respectability and power, who would have had no idea that the band were playing something so risqué, and her life guards, stiff, impeccably turned out and disciplined: the antithesis of "rowdy-dowdy boys". Maybe it was a deliberate joke on the band leader's part, maybe it was simply a concession to popular taste (like playing the latest no. 1 in the charts), but it is a very funny image.

15:43 Jul 29, 2019 

This was a popular song, dating from the 1890s and sung in the music halls, a kind of early variety theatre very popular with working-class Victorians. It was sung by Millie Hilton, dressed as a man:
https://vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=63506&sos=0

"Rowdy-dowdy" was originally criminal slang. Green's Dictionary of Slang gives it as "aggressive, antagonistic" (from 1846) and "vulgar, uncultured, rough" (from 1915).
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/qjypm4q

Eric Partridge, the guru of British slang, tells us that it originally referred to pickpockets:

"Rowdy-dowdy means a rough turning and twisting of the mark (the pickpocket's victim) by the pickpocket and/or his confederate(s)"
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MUbeCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA580

So in origin it suggests something quite menacing: hooliganism and street crime. But as used in the song, it's about drinking and having a good time. It's a kind of "street chic", naughty boys pretending to be really bad boys, typical of the exuberance of the end of the century.

(Continued in next post)