Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here

DESCRIPTION: "Hail, hail, the gang's all here, So what the hell do we care, What the hell do we care? Hail, hail, the gang's all here, So what the hell do we care now?"
AUTHOR: claimed by D. A. Esrom, to a tune by Sir Arthur Sullivan
EARLIEST DATE: 1908 (Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic)
KEYWORDS: nonballad campsong
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Shay-BarroomBallads/PiousFriendsDrunkenCompanions, p. 36, "Hail, Hail!" (1 short text)
Colonial-Dames-AmericanWarSongs, pp. 170-171, "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here" (1 text)
Harbin-Parodology, #170, p. 48, "Hail! Hail!" (1 text)
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, pp. 166, 378, "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here" (notes only)
Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsNThings, p. 48, "Hail! Hail!" (1 text, 1 tune)
Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsPopularEdition, p. 6, "Hail! Hail" (1 text -- not the same text as in Zander/Klusmann-CampSongsNThings)
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, pp. 261-263, "Hal! Halt! The Gang's All Here -- (The Pirates of Penzance)"
Roud #9639
SAME TUNE:
Rejoice! Rejoice! ("Rejoice! Rejoice! the multitude's assembled") (Harbin-Parodology, #3, p. 9)
To the Ladies ("Wail! Wail! The girls/our wives are here, Let's be awfully quiet, Can the usual riot") (Harbin-Parodology, #196, p. 52)
He's a Sight ("Hail! Hail! XXX's a sight. Don't you think he's all right?") (Harbin-Parodology, #204, p. 53)
Meat's All Gone ("Hail! hail! the meat's all gone, What'll be the next course") (Harbin-Parodology, #264, p. 65)
Soup! Soup! ("Soup! Soup! We all want Soup! Needn't stop to strain it") (Harbin-Parodology, #272, pp. 66-67; a significantly different version is in Pankake/Pankake-PrairieHomeCompanionFolkSongBook, p. 12)
NOTES [125 words]: "D. A. Esrom" appears to be a pseudonym of Theodore Morse ("Esrom"="Morse" spelled backward) and his wife Theodora "Dolly" Terris Morse; they wrote a number of hits, but none of them went into tradition that I can tell.
The tune is "Come, Friends, Who Plough the Sea" from "The Pirates of Penzance," so the tune is from 1879.
Edward Foote Gardner, Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century: Volume I -- Chart Detail & Encyclopedia 1900-1949, Paragon House, 2000, p. 319, estimates that this was the thirty-eighth most popular song in America in 1918, peaking at #11 in January 1918 (#1 for the year being J. Will Callahan and Lee G. Roberts's "Smiles"). Gardner credits the words to Esrom (Theodora Morse) and the tune to Theodore Morse and Sullivan. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: SBar036B

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