Just Tell Them That You Saw Me

DESCRIPTION: "While strolling down the street one even, alone on pleasure bent," the singer sees a girl he knew at home. He offers to take a message home. She begs him to merely "tell them that you saw me"; she hopes to improve her pitiful condition before going home
AUTHOR: Paul Dresser (1857-1906)
EARLIEST DATE: 1895 (sheet music by Howly, Haviland & Co.)
KEYWORDS: home hardtimes
FOUND IN: US(MW,So)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Dean-FlyingCloud, p, 124, "Just Tell Them That You Saw Me" (1 text)
Stout-FolkloreFromIowa 46, pp. 63-64, "Just Tell Them THat You Saw Me" (1 text)
Browne-AlabamaFolkLyric 153, "just Tell Them That You Saw Me" (1 text plus mention of 1 more, 1 tune)
Spaeth-ReadEmAndWeep, pp. 201-202, "Just Tell Them You Saw Me" (1 tune, partial text)
ADDITIONAL: Robert A. Fremont, editor, _Favorite Songs of the Nineties_, Dover Publications, 1973, pp. 166-169, "Just Tell Them That You Saw Me" (1 text, 1 tune, the 1895 sheet music)
Margaret Bradford Boni, editor, _Songs of the Gilded Age_, with piano arrangements by Norman Lloyd and illustrations by Lucille Corcos, Golden Press, 1960, pp. 113-115, "Just Tell Them That You Saw Me" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST Dean124 (Partial)
Roud #3528
RECORDINGS:
Uncle Dave Macon, "Just Tell Them That You Saw Me" (Vocalion 5100, Vocalion 15324, rec. Apr. 16, 1926)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Told Them That I Saw You" (characters)
cf. "Oyster Stew" (parody)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Madge
The Wayward Girl
NOTES [75 words]: For the story of Paul Dresser, see the notes to "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away."
This idea seems to have been somewhat popular in the nineteenth century -- e.g. it seems to have been the basis for Dante Gabriel Rossetti's (unfinished) painting and associated poem "Found." There were many novels on the "Fallen Woman" theme, in which the woman often became a prostitute; Hardy's 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles" is perhaps the best-known of these.- RBW
Last updated in version 4.3
File: Dean124

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