Hitchy-Koo

DESCRIPTION: "If you've got an ear for music then just gather near, Tell me, can't you hear it buzzin' in your ear?... It's your ever-lovin' honey calling baby dear." "It's the cutest little thing, Got the cutest little swing, Hitchy-koo, hitchy-koo, hitchy-koo."
AUTHOR: Words: L. Wolfe Gilbert / Music: Lewis F. Muir and Maurice Abrams (source: Sheet music published by F. A. Mills)
EARLIEST DATE: 1912 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: music love
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver, pp. 22-23, "Hitchy Koo" (1 text)
Roud #V25001
RECORDINGS:
[Arthur] Collins & [Byron] Harlan, "Hitchy-Koo" (Columbia A-1226, 1913; recorded 1912)
NOTES [167 words]: According to Wikipedia, this was so popular that it was featured in Broadway reviews from 1917 to 1920 and was a hit in both Britain and America.
Spaeth, p. 406, seems to say that the first of these revues was by Raymond Hitchcock and E. Ray Goetz, while p. 427 says the 1920 edition (which he calls "Hitchy Koo" rather than "Hitchy-Koo") featured music by none other than Jerome Kern, with words by Glen MacDonough and Anne Caldwell. Pp. 500-501 says that Cole Porter also wrote for the Hitchy-Koo revues. According to Jasen, p. 225, Porter's first hit, "Old Fashioned Garden," was from the 1919 "Hitchy-Koo" revue, although it was a sentimental song rather than the sort of clever song he wrote later. (Indeed, Ewen, p. 254, says that while Porter wrote about a dozen songs for the Hitchy-Koo of 1919, "Old Fashioned Garden" was an earlier song he resurrected for the show.)
Gardner, p. 296, estimates that this was the sixteenth most popular song in America in 1912, peaking at #4 in December 1912. - RBW
Bibliography

Ewen: David Ewen, Panorama of American Popular Music, Prentice-Hall, 1957
Gardner: Edward Foote Gardner, Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century: Volume I -- Chart Detail & Encyclopedia 1900-1949, Paragon House, 2000
Jasen: David A. Jasen, Tin Pan Alley: The Composers, the Songs, the Performers and their Times: The Golden Age of American Popular Music from 1886 to 1956, Primus, 1988
Spaeth: Sigmund Spaeth, A History of Popular Music in America, Random House, 1948

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File: AWTBW022

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