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 (2 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")
Roud #25963
SAME TUNE:
If You Were the Only Boche in the Trench (File: AWTBW073)
NOTES [273 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. John Mullen, The Show Must Go On! Popular Song in Britain during the First World War, French edition 2012; English edition, Ashgate, 2015, 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. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: BrPa216C

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