K-K-K-Katy

DESCRIPTION: "Jimmy was a soldier brave and bold, Katy was a maid with hair of gold,
Like an act of fate, Kate was standing at the gate"; Jimmy stutters, "K-K-K-Katy, beautiful Katy, You're the only g-g-g-girl that I adore." He offers a ring and sets our for France
AUTHOR: Geoffrey O'Hara (source: sheet music)
EARLIEST DATE: 1918 (source: sheet music published by Leo. Feist)
KEYWORDS: love courting ring soldier
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Pegler-SoldiersSongsAndSlangoftheGreatWar, pp. 277-278, "K-K-K-Katy" (1 text)
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "K – K – K – Katy"
Roud #18458
RECORDINGS:
Bully Murray, "K-K-K-Katy" (Victor 18455, 1918)
SAME TUNE:
Inky-Pinkie (File: AJRR247)
NOTES [128 words]: The sheet music declares this to be "The Sensational Stammering Song Success Sung by Soldiers and Sailors."
The sheet music doesn't exactly match the song; the song says Katy's hair is gold, but the art shows a woman with dark brown hair. (Admittedly it's a two-color cover, and yellow isn't one of the colors, but a good artist with that orange available could at least have given her pale red hair.) And Katy frankly looks like she desperately wants him to get his grubby paws off of her and go off to France and be shot....
Edward Foote Gardner, Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century: Volume I -- Chart Detail & Encyclopedia 1900-1949, Paragon House, 2000, p. 321, estimates that this was the most popular song in America in 1918, peaking in July of that year. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.1
File: PSoS277

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