Let Old Nellie Stay

DESCRIPTION: The bartender is closing the bar, and demands that the "old lady in red" depart. As she starts crying, someone explains, "Her mother never told her The things a young girl should know... So do not treat her harshly Because she went too far...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1955
KEYWORDS: drink age sin recitation
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Ohrlin-HellBoundTrain 44, "Let Old Nellie Stay" (1 text)
Randolph/Legman-RollMeInYourArms I, pp. 241-245, "The Lady in Red" (1 text, 1 tune)
MidwestFolklore, Joseph Hickerson, "Hoosier Materials in the Indiana University Archive," Volume 11, Number 2 (Summer 1961) p. 78, "(no title)" (1 excerpt)
Roud #15401
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "She Is More to Be Pitied than Censured" (theme)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Lady in Red
O'Leary's Bar
Her Mother Never Told Her
NOTES [156 words]: Legman suggested that this "is a typical barbership quartet mock-tragic, humorous 1890s piece," but offers no evidence; the version in Randolph/Legman is dated 1957. The earliest version he could cite was from 1944, a mimeographed dirty songbook called "Airdales in the Pacific." Not having seen that book, I do not cite it as the earliest date. Legman thinks it was inspired by "She Is More to Be Pitied than Censured," which is obviously very similar in theme.
The piece seems to show up in a lot of college and military collections in the 1950s, and is very rare before that. (Dick Greenhaus thought he learned it c. 1947, but that can't be documented.) There is a mudcat thread in which a LOT of people recalled it. This suggests to me a military origin in World War II (which fits with Legman's 1944 date), with the college kids learning it from returned soldiers attending school on the G.I. Bill. That's not proof, of course. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: Ohr044

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