Bowery, The

DESCRIPTION: "The Bowery... They say such things and they do strange things... I'll never go there any more." Misadventures of a "new coon in town" who doesn't understand the street talk. E.g. he tells a babbling barber to "cut it short" and has his head shaved.
AUTHOR: Words: Chas. H. Hoyt/Music: Percy Gaunt (source: sheet music)
EARLIEST DATE: 1951 (MUNFLA-Leach); 1892 (sheet music, Percy Gaunt and Charles H Hoyt)
KEYWORDS: fight violence humorous wordplay Black(s) hair
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Wehman Bros. [Collection of Songs] No. 39 Song Book (New York, 1893 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), p. 19, "The Bowery" ("Oh! the night that I struck New York") (1 text)
Roud #17616
RECORDINGS:
John M. Curtis, "The Bowery" (on MUNFLA-Leach)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Bod16053 Harding B 18(58), "The Bowery" ("Oh! the night that I struck New York"), H.J. Wehman (NewYork), 1892
Percy Gaunt and Charles H Hoy,. Songs from Hoyt's A Trip to Chinatown. T.B. Harms & Co., New York, NY, 1892. Notated Music. https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200004920/ , accessed August 22, 2018, Library of Congress Notated Music
NOTES [87 words]: For another word play example: the singer is accosted by a shill; a friendly cop "chased him away, and I asked him why. 'Wasn't he pulling your leg,' said he. Said I, 'He never laid hands on me!'"
The Bowery was a New York red-light district in the 1890's. It is in downtown Manhattan, on the edge of the lower East Side, south of Cooper Union and running down close to the Brooklyn Bridge. Later, a skid row with bars and pawn shops. - BS
This was the major song coming out of the 1891 musical "A Trip to Chinatown." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: ML3Bowry

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