Baby's Got a Tooth

DESCRIPTION: "John, get up and light the fire, Turn the gas a wee bit higher, Go and tell your Aunt Maria, Baby's got a tooth(ache)." "Well, there, I’m so delighted, I don’t know what to do"; after a year of marriage, the couple has a baby, and now it has a tooth
AUTHOR: possibly E. H. Jones (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1881 (copyright listed in the "American and European imperial unabridged song collection" at the University of Pittsburg)
KEYWORDS: family fire baby | toothache
FOUND IN: Ireland US(MA)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Newman/Devlin-NeverWithoutASong, p. 232, "Baby's Got a Tooth" (1 short text)
Peirce-KeepTheKettleBoiling, p. 58, "(John, Get Up and Light the Fire)" (1 short text, possibly a mix of "Baby's Got a Tooth" and a separate "John, Get up and Light the Fire" song)
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "Baby's got a tooth (EH Jones)"
Roud #5260
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Men of Harlech" (tune, according to Peirce-KeepTheKettleBoiling)
NOTES [178 words]: As originally published, this seems to have been a complicated piece, with several verses, a spoken interlude, and the chorus. Only the chorus seems to have survived in tradition, and that just barely.
Newman/Devlin-NeverWithoutASong found a copy of this in The Minstrel (1883) that credited the words to Charley Reed. The version in the online John Foster's Great New York Circus songster in the University of Pittsburg library, however, lists words as by J. F. Mitchell (I think it's a J; the scan is imperfect), music by E. H. Jones, arranged by W. G. Eaton. FolkSongAndMusicHall attributes it to J. E. Toole but prints a copy with words by J. F. Mitchell, music by E. H. Jones. Another is copyrighted by J. W. Pepper, but this is probably for new words only. All in all, Jones seems like the best bet, but I am very far from certain. And note that Peirce's version has a different tune.
There is another song entitled "Baby's Got a Tooth" song from 1875, which FolkSongAndMusicHall credits to Rollin Howard, but it doesn't seem to have become traditional. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: PKKB058B

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