Worse You Are the More the Ladies Love You, The

DESCRIPTION: "Gilbert was once a goody goody sort of fellow," but the girl he loved didn't care, so he turned bad. " "The worse you are the more the ladies love you, The more they want to hang around... ... don't forget to tell them All the horrible things you do"
AUTHOR: R. P. Weston and Bert Lee (source: FolkSongAndMusicHall)
EARLIEST DATE: 1918 (source: FolkSongAndMusicHall)
LONG DESCRIPTION: "Gilbert was once a goody goody sort of fellow," but the girl he wanted wasn't interested, so he turned bad. "The worse you are the more the ladies love you, The more they want to hang around... It's the bad lads that get the nice girls... don't forget to tell them All the horrible things you do And just like the ivy... All the girls will cling to you." He advises keeping a harem and swanking it up. "For what do girls write home when they've eloped
'Dear ma, he's not so wicked as I hoped.'"
KEYWORDS: courting rejection wife | worse you are
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 158, "The worse you are the more the ladies love you" (1 text)
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "Worse you are the more the ladies love you, The"
Roud #25400
NOTES [57 words]: This is one of many pop songs of the World War I era that Alice Kane heard in her early life and remembered in fragmentary form (in this case, just the chorus) many decades later. I don't know of any other traditional versions.
For the long list of songs in the Index by R. P. Weston, or Weston and Bert Lee, see the notes to "Goodbye-ee." - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: KSUC158B

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