The Information Super-Frog

I lost my gal from Memphis,
She's gone to Caroline.
I know just who she went with,
A dear old pal of mine.

I ought to hop a choo-choo,
I know I ought to go,
I'd love to find my baby,
But my funds are awful low.

My gal, why did she leave me?
Sweet gal, I'm missing her so!

Oh, there ain't no gal in Memphis
As good as her around,
I've lost my gal from Memphis,
That's why I feel lowdown.

I lost my gal from Memphis,
She sure was sweet and cute.
There ain't no gal in Memphis
Can be her substitute.

Each time I spoke of marriage
She started telling jokes.
She always had her hands out.
"Tell me, how are all your folks?"

My gal, how could she fool me?
Sweet gal, I'll never forget.

I lost my gal from Memphis.
I think I'll take my life.
No; I'll do something better:
I'll go home to my wife.

Ms Hollie and I were talking about a couple of songs the other day... turns out they're both from 1911, a good year for ragtime novelty songs.

When Ragtime Rosie Ragged The Rosary

Words by Edgar Leslie. Music by Lewis F. Muir

Original sheet music

Lyrics without the notes

Listen to piano midi
(I didn't find a period recording on line with a short search)


Red Rose Rag

Words by Edward Madden. Music by Percy Wenrich.

Original sheet music

Lyrics without the notes

Listen to an Edison cylinder recorded by the Premier Quartette

benzai_ten "tagged" me to do a "six current favorite songs" meme.

I don't know about "favorites", that changes very regularly, but here are some that have been on my mind in the last few days:

1)"Carolina in the Morning" It's one of the old standards that even those who generally have no contact with pre-rock music sort-of know ("Nothing could be finer/Than to be in..."). For whatever reason, dispite the affinity for '20s pop tunes in the trad jazz repertory, I seldom hear it here in New Orleans-- perhaps because we have so many good tunes on local themes bands don't feel a need to plug some other state (except for "Indiana"). I hadn't thought about the song for years, then I heard a banjo player do it and I brought out an old EP of Brad Gowans band and played his recording on my radio show. It really is a good song. And the lyrics...

Strolling with my girlie
Where the dew is pearly
Early in the morning

Butterflies all flutter up
And kiss each little buttercup
At dawning

...Mmmm, that's good Tin Pan Alley.

And if you're going to sing it, it's one that just begs to be hammed up.

2)Won't You Be My Lovin' Baby? Another 1920s number, this one an obsurity by The Half-way House Orchestra, one of the top white jazz/dance bands in New Orleans in the decade. This was one of the band's original numbers; they made a recording of it for Columbia but it was rejected, but a test pressing survived.

I suspect someone at Columbia thought lyrics like the below were a bit much for commercial issue at the time:

Won't you be my lovin' baby,
Just for tonight?
Let's pet under the moon so bright
Come and hold me tight.
Press your lovin' lips to mine
You'll feel that funny feeling up and down your spine
If you be my lovin' baby
Just for tonight,
I'm askin'
Come be mine tonight.

Hey, if they couldn't get band groupies with that one...

The tune is just a slight variation on the old Buddy Bolden standard "Don't Go 'Way Nobody" with a turn around added. Lots of the "originals" recorded by local bands in the '20s were just slight reworkings-- if any changes were made at all-- of numbers that had been in the local repertory for years or decades already by that time. "Don't Go 'Way Nobody" was one of the most reworked, and also appeared in such national Tin Pan Alley Hits as "You Gotta See Mama Every Night Or You Can't See Mama At All". Two groups I occasionally sub or sit in with do "You Gotta See Mama", and I thought the two songs could go together very nicely, with a male vocalist singing the above verse, then the female going into:

You've got to see mama every night
Or you can't see mama at all.
You gotta kiss mama
And treat her right
Or she won't be home when you call.
I don't want the kind of Sheik
Who does his sheiking once a week,
You gotta see your mama every night
Or you won't see mama at all...

By the way, Bolden's "Don't Go 'Way" from 1904 seems an unusually early example of the AABA pop tune structure. Anyone known of earlier/other examples from around that time?

3)Ballin' The Jack. Not a 1920s tune: A standard from 1914. It's on my mind as at last practice the band decided to switch who does the vocal on it to me. Okay, though I'm unsure I wish to do the dance steps that go with it. The other trombonist does a good job at that. I agree with him that the rest of the band should learn the verse in addition to the chorus.

4)Naked Town A 21st century number from Paul Gailiunas of The Trouble Makers. It's one of the numbers the Trouble Makers did at the wedding reception where I played with them; its not on their cd. I asked Paul to email me the lyrics as I didn't catch them all, but as I havn't gotten them, I filled some in while singing to myself. Probably not quite right as composed, but it's something like this:

Come on honey, grab my hand
Let's go on a trip.
We're going to a special place
You're sure to think it's hip.
Take off your shoes,
Take off your hat,
Take off your ribbons and bows.
We're going down to Naked Town
Where we won't need any clothes.

Naked Town, Naked Town,
Let's go down to Naked Town
No one ever wears a frown
Down in Naked Town...

I sang it to a few members of the Ramblers Jazz Band at a pool party, and we might wind up doing a trad cover of it. Just the thing to play at skinny-dipping and certain Carnival events...

5)When My Baby Smiles At Me, a 1920 number by the masterful Harry Von Tilzer. A clarinetist at the Jazz Club jam called this one out; the banjo player and I were the only others who knew it. The three of us got away with playing it anyway. I invited the clarinetist to play with the new small band, for which we need to find a better name than "The Spanish Fort Jazz Band" as even most locals who aren't up on minutia of local history seem puzzled by the "Spanish Fort" reference. (Spanish Fort was an amusement park on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain with notable jazz bands in the 1920s at the location of the ruins of a small colonial era fort. Our banjo/guitar player lives near there. Suggestions of better names for a 1920s style New Orleans jazz band welcome.)

Speaking of Von Tilzer tunes, that calls back into mind 6)My Little Girl by the other great Von Tilzer, Albert. I've sung it elsewhere on LJ a while ago. It is another number that jazzes up real good, though the Last Straws are the only group I recall doing so any time recently.

Most other numbers in my head currently are instrumentals, not songs.

I don't "tag" others to answer. Reply to this meme yourself if you'd like, otherwise don't.

I wish I knew why Bill Bailey won't come home.
(Come on home)
You know, Bill Bailey, you don't have to roam.
(Come on home)
You've got her heart
She's always true
And all her lovin' is a-waitin' for you
Why did you leave your baby all alone?
(Come on home)
To get you back she's tried most every plan
(Come on home)
Even told you that she'd find another man.
(Come on home)
She's as fine a gal as she can be
Why can't you live in harmony?
I wish I knew why Bill Bailey won't come home.

Speaking of France... Here's a prohibition era song from the late 1920s, as I transcribed it off an old record by Sophie Tucker. In the Marx Brothers movie "Animal Crackers", Groucho at one point asks "How many Frenchmen can't be wrong?" If you didn't know the answer, this song explains it.

FIFTY MILLION FRENCHMEN CAN'T BE WRONG
by Rose, Raskin, & Fisher

They say the French are naughty
They say the French are bad
They all declare that over there, the French are going mad.
They have a reputation of being very gay
I just got back from Paris, and I just want to say:
When they go parley-vee and parley-vou,
This for me, zat for you,
Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong.
When they go Ohh la la la la la la la
On the bully boulevard
Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong.
They shake-a the hand
They shake-a the feet
They roll ze eyes and kiss cafe right on the street
Even though the Irish and the Dutch
Say it don't amount to much
Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong.

All of our fashions come from gay Par-ee
And if they come above the knee
Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong.
And if they give the world a new design
To prove a lady has a spine
Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong.
They shorten them here,
They shorten them there,
And if her name is Teddy, they make Teddy bare.
If they prefer to see their women dressed
With more or less of less and less,
Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong.

When they put on a show, and it's a hit
No one tries to censor it
Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong.
And when a book is selling at it's best
It isn't stopped; it's not suppressed.
Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong.
Whenever they're dry
For brandy or rye,
To get it, they don't gave to give up their right eye.
And when we brag about our liberty
And they laugh at you and you and you and me
Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong.

In Viva la France
They're full of romance
You'll find policemen with embroidery on their pants.
And when they start to sing the Marseillaise
They sing it forty different ways
Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong.