If You Were The Only Girl in the World

DESCRIPTION: "If you were the only girl in the world, And I was the only boy, Nothing else would matter in the world today, We would go on loving the same old way, A Garden of Eden made just for two With nothing to mar our joy... If you were the only...."
AUTHOR: Words: Clifford Grey / Music: Nat D. Ayer
EARLIEST DATE: 1916 (musical revue "The Bing Boys Are Here," according to Wikipedia)
KEYWORDS: love courting nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Brophy/Partridge-TommiesSongsAndSlang, pp. 216-217, "(If You Were the Only Girl in the World)" (1 text)
Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver, p. 73, "If You Were the Only Boche in the Trench" (1 short text plus an excerpt of the source song "If You Were the Only Girl in the World")
Pegler-SoldiersSongsAndSlangoftheGreatWar, p. 270, "If You Were the Only Girl in the World" (1 text)
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "If you were the only girl in the world"
Roud #25963
SAME TUNE:
If You Were the Only Boche in the Trench (File: AWTBW073)
NOTES [486 words]: This is a mild curiosity, because it is famous as a "straight" love song, but it came within a hair of being a comic song. Mullen, p. 135:
"The case of the 1916 song 'If You Were the Only Girl in the World,' one of the very few [music hall] songs [from World War I] still known today, is fascinating. It was sung as a duet by George Robey and Violet Lorraine in the revue The Bing Boys are Here. Bing, played by George Robey dressed in a ridiculous sailor suit too small for him, might have been expected to stick to a comic style. Indeed, until a few moments before going on stage, Robey had planned to sing the song... for laughs. He changed his mind and sang the song 'straight' and it became one of the biggest hits of the war years."
The cover of Mullen (at least, the paperback edition I have) shows a photo of Robey, Lorraine, and Alfred Lester in their "Bing Boys" costumes. Robey and Lester are in ill-fitting sailors' clothes; Lorraine is in what I think is a maid's outfit. Robey and Lorraine are indeed an odd couple; she's taller than he is. (And her hands don't look like the hands of a maid; they appear to be very smooth.)
"Bing Boys" was apparently successful enough to invite a sequel, "The Bing Girls Are Here," from 1917. According to Mullen, p. 228, "The revue The Bing Girls Are Here [was] a great success. The plot concerns a competition between all the young ladies of a small town, who must try to pass an entire year without being kissed." Sort of a half-Lysisistrata plot.
Robey (born Geroge Wade; 1869-1954) started out more as a comic, "the Prime Minister of Mirth," according to Baker, p. 246. He was a fairly good musician (playing the mandolin in classical duets, according to Baker, p. 247), but he initially had only a small repertoire of songs. Early photos of him look like a cross between a pirate and Bert Lahr in the movie version of "The Wizard of Oz," wearing a wig, a battered had, huge painted-on eyebrows, and perhaps a kerchief. Baker, p. 247, mentions some of the characters he inhabited: "The Prehistoric Man," Henry VIII, a district nurse named Daisy Dillwater, and the "muddled and self-important Mayor of Mudcumdyke."
Although he had been performing for decades by the time 1916 rolled around, "The Big Boys" was his first revue.
It perhaps should have been Robey who had the job of being forbidden a kiss. He was constantly having affairs, and refused to speak to his wife for decades (Baker, p. 247).
He began appearing in movies as early as 1900, and played Falstaff in the 1944 Laurence Olivier movie version of "Henry V." He was knighted shorly before his death in 1954. (One wonders if Elizabeth II knew of his sexual behavior.)
There is at least one biography of Robey: Peter Cotes, George Robey, 1959, as well as Robey's own autobiographical Looking Back on Life, 1933; there is also James Harding, George Robey and the British Music-Hall, 1990. . - RBW
Bibliography Last updated in version 7.2
File: BrPa216C

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