I'm Shirley Temple

DESCRIPTION: "I'm Shirley Temple, the girl with curly hair, I've got two dimples, and wear me skirts up there; I'm not able to do the Betty Grable ... leg like nobody's business ... figure like Marilyn Monroe ... hair like Ginger Rogers... You should see Salome ..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1976 (Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame)
KEYWORDS: playparty hair
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South),Scotland(Bord))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 120, "I'm Shirley Temple" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Shirley Temple Takes a Bow" (subject of Shirley Temple)
cf. "Shirley Temple Walks Like This" (subject of Shirley Temple)
cf. "Charlie Chaplin Went to France" (mention of Shirley Temple in some versions)
NOTES [463 words]: "Shirley Jane Temple (born April 23, 1928) is an Academy Award-winning actress most famous for being an iconic American child actor of the 1930s, although she is also notable for her diplomatic career as an adult." (Source: Wikipedia article Shirley Temple ).
[Note that Temple later came to be known as Shirley Temple Black, and died in 2014. - RBW.]
Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe and Ginger Rogers are movie stars of the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's. Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame: "The fact that the names are meaningless to the players [in the seventies] is evident from the variations."
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame: "The Salome verse ... came into being when Maud Allan, clad in little more than pearls, was scandalizing London with her dance 'The Vision of Salome', first performed at the Palace Theater on 17 March 1908." See C.P. Vicarion [Christopher Logue], Count Palmiro Vicarion's Grand Grimoire of Bawdy Ballads and Limericks (1955 (copyrighted material limited preview "Digitized by Google")), #60 pp. 87-88, "Salome." - BS
To further clarify: In the New Testament, the daughter of Herodias (so Matthew 14:6; in Mark 6:22 some texts say "Herodias's daughter" but the best texts say "his [Herod's] daughter Herodias") danced before Herod Antipas, and so pleased him that he offered her anything she asked for -- and she asked for John the Baptist's head.
Nowhere in the New Testament do we learn the girl's name. But Josephus, Antiquities XVIII.136-137 (Loeb numbering) says that Herodias and Herod Philip (not the same as Philip the Tetrarch) had a daughter named Salome.
Josephus does not say that Salome danced before Herod Antipas or asked for John the Baptist's head. And Salome was not the daughter of Antipas, which would be required by the Markan account. But most people assume that it was Salome who did the dancing.
Neither does the New Testament say that the girl's dance was lewd. The Greek word ορχεομαι, "orcheomai" in fact is used of children's games elsewhere in the New Testament, and in classical Greek is also used of miming, and of jumping and bouncing around. Nonetheless the tradition is firm that Salome daughter of Herodias danced a lascivious dance before Herod Antipas and so induced him to offer her whatever she wanted. And, admittedly, it makes sense -- can you imagine someone getting that excited about a pantomime?
As a result, Salome has become the subject of very many portrayals centered around her behavior and lack of attire. The earliest of these were literary, but Richard Strauss composed an opera "Salome" in 1905, based on a book by Oscar Wilde (Benet, pp. 983-984). "The Dance of the Seven Veils" is often said to have been danced by Salome (see the Wikipedia entry).
For a bit more about Salome, see "Salome Was a Dancer." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: OpGa120

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography