I Got a Gal in Baltimore

DESCRIPTION: "I got a gal in Baltimore, Street-car runs right by her door, Crazy baby a-settin' on the floor, Get your hair cut pompadour!" Play-party version, "She's the belle of Baltimore, She's got her name wrote on her door, And a 40 dollar carpet on the floor."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, The Georgia Crackers)
KEYWORDS: technology hair playparty home
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph 452, "I Got a Gal in Baltimore" (1 fragment)
Spurgeon-WaltzTheHall-AmericanPlayParty, p. 70, "Baltimore" (1 text, 1 tune)
NorthCarolinaFolkloreJournal, Portia Naomi Crawford, "A Study of Negro Folk Songs from Greensboro, North Carolina and Surrounding Towns," Vol. XVI, No. 2 (Oct 1968), pp. 108-109, "I Got a Little Woman" (1 text, 1 tune, starting with "I got a little woman in Baltimore" and mixing in floating material about what the jay bird said to the crow)
Roud #7601
RECORDINGS:
Georgia Crackers "I've Got a Gal in Baltimore" (OKeh 45192, 1928; rec. 1927)
NOTES [122 words]: Randolph, taking a lead from Spaeth (in Read 'Em and Weep, p. 146 [Randolph prints 166 in error]), thinks this may be connected to "Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay." The form suggests a connection to "Old Joe Clark" or a relative. But until we have more text to work with, any conclusions are shaky. - RBW
Well, here's a bit more [a second half-verse to the half-verse above]: "She don't wear no -- yes, she do/She don't wear no Sunday shoes." The tune is nothing like either "Old Joe Clark" or "Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay"; it's a string-ragtime sort of tune. - PJS
Which, however, still leaves us with only a single verse.... Spurgeon-WaltzTheHall-AmericanPlayParty has a clear playparty version with more words, but I suspect it came later. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.1
File: R452

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