"School Days" | |
---|---|
Song | |
Published | 1907 |
Songwriter(s) | Gus Edwards, Will D. Cobb |
"School Days" is an American popular song written in 1907 by Will D. Cobb and Gus Edwards. Its subject is of a mature couple looking back sentimentally on their childhood together in primary school. [1] The song was featured in a Broadway show of the same name, the first in a series of Edwards' school acts. It was the inspiration for many subsequent school acts, including the Marx Brothers' Fun in Hi Skule, their first major Vaudeville success. [2]
The best known part of the song is its chorus:
School days, school days
Dear old Golden Rule days
'Reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hick'ry stick
You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful, barefoot beau
And you wrote on my slate, "I Love You, Joe"
When we were a couple o' kids
"School Days" has been recorded many times over the years. Byron G. Harlan was an early recording star who made it a hit. [4] Billy Murray and Ada Jones also sang it as memorable duet, referenced decades later by Tiny Tim on one of his albums, in which he sang both parts, using his famous falsetto voice.
Louis Jordan recorded a jump blues version of "School Days" in 1949 under the title "School Days (When We Were Kids)". Although it credited the original songwriters, Jordan's record had little in common with earlier versions of the song other than the words of the chorus. The original melody was replaced with a twelve bar blues and the lyrics of most of the verses were replaced with nursery rhymes.
The Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their "Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz record ever issued. The group composed and recorded many jazz standards, the most famous being "Tiger Rag". In late 1917, the spelling of the band's name was changed to Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
Gustave Edwards was an American composer, songwriter and film director. He also was a vaudevillian, organised his own theatre companies and was a music publisher.
William Denight Cobb was an American lyricist and composer. He and a partner, Ren Shields, produced several popular musicals and musical comedies in the early 20th century. Cobb also had a long-run collaboration with Gus Edwards.
Children's music or kids' music is music composed and performed for children. In European-influenced contexts this means music, usually songs, written specifically for a juvenile audience. The composers are usually adults. Children's music has historically held both entertainment and educational functions. Children's music is often designed to provide an entertaining means of teaching children about their culture, other cultures, good behavior, facts and skills. Many are folk songs, but there is a whole genre of educational music that has become increasingly popular.
Arthur Francis Collins was an American baritone who was one of the pioneer recording artists, regarded in his day as "King of the Ragtime Singers".
Byron George Harlan was an American singer from Kansas, a comic minstrel singer and balladeer who often recorded with Arthur Collins. The two together were often billed as "Collins & Harlan".
"Carolina in the Morning" is a popular song with words by Gus Kahn and music by Walter Donaldson, first published in 1922 by Jerome H. Remick & Co.
"Pretty Baby" is a song written by Tony Jackson during the Ragtime era. The song was remembered as being prominent in Jackson's repertory before he left New Orleans in 1912, but was not published until 1916.
"Red River Valley" is a folk song and cowboy music standard of uncertain origins that has gone by different names, depending on where it has been sung. It is listed as Roud Folk Song Index 756 and by Edith Fowke as FO 13. It is recognizable by its chorus :
"Cocaine Blues" is a Western swing song written by Troy Junius Arnall, a reworking of the traditional song "Little Sadie." Roy Hogsed recorded a well known version of the song in 1947.
"Gloria" is a 1979 love song written and composed in Italian by Umberto Tozzi and Giancarlo Bigazzi, and afterwards translated to English by Jonathan King. A 1982 cover version by American singer Laura Branigan peaked at number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 and has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
"Sweet Home Chicago" is a blues standard first recorded by Robert Johnson in 1936. Although he is often credited as the songwriter, several songs have been identified as precedents. The song has become a popular anthem for the city of Chicago despite ambiguity in Johnson's original lyrics. Numerous artists have interpreted the song in a variety of styles.
"Saturday Night Fish Fry" is a jump blues song written by Louis Jordan and Ellis Lawrence Walsh, best known through the version recorded by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five. The recording is considered to be one of the "excellent and commercially successful" examples of the jump blues genre.
Louis Bernhardt Price is an American R&B and soul singer, and actor notable for being the lead singer of the first post-Dennis Edwards led version of The Temptations from 1977 to 1980.
"Parchman Farm" or "Parchman Farm Blues" is a blues song first recorded by American Delta blues musician Bukka White in 1940. It is an autobiographical piece, in which White sings of his experience at the infamous Mississippi State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Parchman Farm.
Lord Byron of Broadway (1930), also known as What Price Melody?, is an American Pre-Code musical drama film, directed by Harry Beaumont and William Nigh. It was based on a best selling book by Nell Martin, which "was widely praised by critics as an extremely true and amusing romance of stage life." It was filmed in black and white with two-color Technicolor sequences.
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" is a popular Christian hymn written in 1907 by Ada R. Habershon with music by Charles H. Gabriel. The song is often recorded unattributed and, because of its age, has lapsed into the public domain. Most of the chorus appears in the later songs "Can the Circle Be Unbroken" and "Daddy Sang Bass".
"Hey Lawdy Mama" is a Piedmont blues song recorded by Buddy Moss in 1934. The song became popular among jazz musicians with early recordings by Count Basie and Louis Armstrong. In 1943, a version recorded by Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy, with vocals by June Richmond, was a hit, reaching number four on the Billboard R&B chart.
Hello Central, Give Me Heaven is a popular Tin Pan Alley song first published in 1901, with lyrics and music by Charles K. Harris, and was among Harris's most popular songs. It was first recorded by Byron G. Harlan and released in July 1901.