She May Have Seen Better Days

DESCRIPTION: "While strolling along 'midst the city's vast throng, On a night that was bitterly cold," the singer sees a crowd teasing a woman in tears. She has clearly fallen on hard times, but someone notes "she might have seen better days." The crowd is silenced
AUTHOR: James Thornton
EARLIEST DATE: 1895 (sheet music published by Francis, Day & Hunter)
KEYWORDS: drink poverty hardtimes
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Dean-FlyingCloud, pp. 123-124, "She May Have Seen Better Days" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Robert A. Fremont, editor, _Favorite Songs of the Nineties_, Dover Publications, 1973, pp. 251-254, "She May Have Seen Better Days" (1 text, 1 tune, the 1895 sheet music)
Roud #9582
NOTES [80 words]: According to Sigmund Spaeth, A History of Popular Music in America, pp. 255-256, James Thornton was a very popular songwriter from about 1892 to 1898, producing such songs as "My Sweetheart's the Man in the Moon," "Don't Give Up the Old Love for the New," "Going for a Pardon," and (especially) "When You Were Sweet Sixteen." Spaeth, p. 256, notes that this song is "usually paired with William B. Gray's She Is More to Be Pitied than Censured" as the acme of the maudlin." - RBW
Last updated in version 3.2
File: Dean123

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