Goodbye Mama, Goodbye Dada

DESCRIPTION: "Goodbye mama, goodbye dada, Goodbye to all the rest, Goodbye mama, goodbye dada, For I love dolly best." "Past 8 o'clock and it's bedtime for dolly, Past 8 o'clock and it's bedtime for me. Dolly must sleep... Dolly and I are quite sure to agree."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1995 (Porter/Gower-Jeannie-Robertson-EmergentSingerTransformativeVoice)
KEYWORDS: nonballad mother father
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Porter/Gower-Jeannie-Robertson-EmergentSingerTransformativeVoice #2, p. 112, "Goodbye Mama, Goodbye Dada" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES [252 words]: The first verse of this ("Goodbye mama.... For I love dolly best") is the entire text recalled by Jeannie Robertson, and there seem to be no other clear collections from tradition. And yet, I seemed to recall the lyric when I saw it.
Hunting around on the Internet didn't produce much, but on the King Laoghaire Irish site someone supplied a text that supplies the "Past 8 o'clock and it's bedtime for dolly" verse, with chorus
Good night Mama, good night Papa,
Good night to all the rest,
Good night Mama, good night Papa,
For I love dolly best.
and a second verse
Ma turn the lights out for I am so sleepy,
Papa good night, love and give me a kiss,
Dolly good night I will see you tomorrow,
Dolly and I are quite sure to agree.
Several others claimed to recall the song.
Another poster claimed that this was a song about a Topsy doll (aka a Topsy-Turvy doll) -- that is, a doll with two heads and upper bodies joined at the waist, so that by flipping over the skirt, you could show either head. Typically one head was black and one white. These dolls were apparently in existence by the 1890s if not earlier, and still made into the 1950s.
There was a song about the Topsy dolls in which the girl washes her doll but can't make it white. Obviously racist, but it has several lyrics that look like they are related to the Robertson fragment. So my guess is that Jeannie Robertson heard the Topsy Doll song in her youth, and (consciously or unconsciously) kept the least offensive part, which became this song. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.3
File: RPG002

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