The Lady Is a Tramp Lyrics

[skeith]

Great song... but sometimes I wonder a bit about the lyrics because they don't add up.

So most of the lyrics paint a picture of behaviors that might be called ...well not classy

But what about "hates california it's cold and it's damp" - first not a behavior and second those are two weather characteristics I don't associate with California ... ok maybe San Francisco... but hey there are much colder and damper places in the US for this tramp to go to since she is presumably not from California.

And she "won't go to Harlem in Lincolns or Fords" ... since when are Fords classy?

Inquiring minds want to know

[medjuck]

The "Lincolns or Fords" line is sung in the Sinatra version and he may have originated them. They aren't in the original Larry Hart lyrics as found here:

http://www.lorenzhart.org/trampsng.htm

where of course she "won't go to Harlem in ermines and pearls".

These lyrics, which go on for several choruses, make a lot of references to then contemporary topics and probably upper class Easterners were just starting to brag about trips to California-- which is sometimes (eg the Spring) colder and wetter than the East.

Edited December 24, 2013 by medjuck

[Larry Kart]

THE LADY IS A TRAMP was introduced in the Broadway musical BABES IN ARMS in 1937 by Mitzi Green. Early film of the song shows it as a semi-comedy hobo number: the young leading lady has vanquished her sophisticated rival and is singing humorously of herself and her down-to-earth "Hobohemia" lifestyle. The song did not make it to the Garland /Rooney screen version, but Lena Horne sang it in 1942's WORDS AND MUSIC.

Frank Sinatra's male sophisticate version from PAL JOEY bears little contextual resemblance to the original.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

THE LADY IS A TRAMP was introduced in the Broadway musical BABES IN ARMS in 1937 by Mitzi Green. Early film of the song shows it as a semi-comedy hobo number: the young leading lady has vanquished her sophisticated rival and is singing humorously of herself and her down-to-earth "Hobohemia" lifestyle. The song did not make it to the Garland /Rooney screen version, but Lena Horne sang it in 1942's WORDS AND MUSIC.

Frank Sinatra's male sophisticate version from PAL JOEY bears little contextual resemblance to the original.

THE LADY IS A TRAMP was introduced in the Broadway musical BABES IN ARMS in 1937 by Mitzi Green. Early film of the song shows it as a semi-comedy hobo number: the young leading lady has vanquished her sophisticated rival and is singing humorously of herself and her down-to-earth "Hobohemia" lifestyle. The song did not make it to the Garland /Rooney screen version, but Lena Horne sang it in 1942's WORDS AND MUSIC.

Frank Sinatra's male sophisticate version from PAL JOEY bears little contextual resemblance to the original.

THE LADY IS A TRAMP was introduced in the Broadway musical BABES IN ARMS in 1937 by Mitzi Green. Early film of the song shows it as a semi-comedy hobo number: the young leading lady has vanquished her sophisticated rival and is singing humorously of herself and her down-to-earth "Hobohemia" lifestyle. The song did not make it to the Garland /Rooney screen version, but Lena Horne sang it in 1942's WORDS AND MUSIC.

Frank Sinatra's male sophisticate version from PAL JOEY bears little contextual resemblance to the original.

MOST interesting. Thank you, O omniscient critic!!!

MG

[Larry Kart]

Not omniscient, just Google-adept. The passage is mostly a quote from something I found via Google and corroborated; I added 'and is singing humorously of herself and her down-to-earth "Hobohemia" lifestyle.'

[skeith]

Thanks everyone.

I recognize that the Lorenz Hart songwriting team is among the greatest....

I see that the California line was in the original and sticks out for me as not fitting .... Lincolns and Fords was added apparently... interesting that you can just make your own adjustments.

[Larry Kart]

About the California line, see Medjuck's post #2, though I'm not entirely certain that it covers all the possible bases. OTOH, it's almost certainly speculation in the right direction.

[Larry Kart]

From Gerald Asher's book "A Vineyard in My Glass":

"In California the ocean plays a more significant role in determining climate than do points of the compass; people with fixed ideas of north as cold and south as hot find California an enigma.... Before writing those memorable words ' hate California, it's cold and it's damp' .... Lorenz Hart must have been traumatized by a particularly gloomy summer weekend on the Santa Barbara coast."

[Ted O'Reilly]

Hart: "ermines and pearls" to rhyme with "rest of the girls"

Sinatra: "Lincolns and Fords" to rhyme with "rest of the broads"

Doesn't work for me, but maybe with a Noo Joisey accent...

[paul secor]

I've always taken "Hates California, it's cold and it's damp" as a humorous/sarcastic comment (even if untrue) on California written by a Manhattan born and based theatre songwriter.

[crisp]

THE LADY IS A TRAMP was introduced in the Broadway musical BABES IN ARMS in 1937 by Mitzi Green. Early film of the song shows it as a semi-comedy hobo number: the young leading lady has vanquished her sophisticated rival and is singing humorously of herself and her down-to-earth "Hobohemia" lifestyle. The song did not make it to the Garland /Rooney screen version, but Lena Horne sang it in 1942's WORDS AND MUSIC.

Frank Sinatra's male sophisticate version from PAL JOEY bears little contextual resemblance to the original.

Yes, and it's also a defiant song. The singer is saying "that's why everyone in the smart set thinks I'm a tramp", ie, because I haven't much money and prefer everyday simple activities to fashionable, sophisticated ones. "No got. So what?"

Although the versions by Sinatra, Buddy Greco and other male singers swing superbly, the song doesn't suit a man at all. It comes across as, at best, nonsense, at worst misogynous. The scene when Sinatra sings it in Paul Joey to provoke a woman is especially embarrassing. And the attempts to update the lyrics are uniformly dreadful. I'm not surprised the OP was nonplussed by the versions he's heard.

[JSngry]

These are not the original lyrics?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gwZC5s2IU0

[medjuck]

THE LADY IS A TRAMP was introduced in the Broadway musical BABES IN ARMS in 1937 by Mitzi Green. Early film of the song shows it as a semi-comedy hobo number: the young leading lady has vanquished her sophisticated rival and is singing humorously of herself and her down-to-earth "Hobohemia" lifestyle. The song did not make it to the Garland /Rooney screen version, but Lena Horne sang it in 1942's WORDS AND MUSIC.

Frank Sinatra's male sophisticate version from PAL JOEY bears little contextual resemblance to the original.

Yes, and it's also a defiant song. The singer is saying "that's why everyone in the smart set thinks I'm a tramp", ie, because I haven't much money and prefer everyday simple activities to fashionable, sophisticated ones. "No got. So what?"

Although the versions by Sinatra, Buddy Greco and other male singers swing superbly, the song doesn't suit a man at all. It comes across as, at best, nonsense, at worst misogynous. The scene when Sinatra sings it in Paul Joey to provoke a woman is especially embarrassing. And the attempts to update the lyrics are uniformly dreadful. I'm not surprised the OP was nonplussed by the versions he's heard.

Well it makes sense for a male to sing if he's defending a woman who's been dismissed as a tramp. But IIRC in the Pal Joey film it's just confusing because Joey is trying to say that the woman in question is a tramp. (Rita Hayworth?).

[crisp]

Yes I agree. It's odd that a singer with such a reputation for understanding the deeper meaning of lyrics should so dreadfully misunderstand this one. I wonder if Sinatra was letting his desire to come across as "naughty" (misogynous) and call women tramps and broads overcame his better instincts here.

[Larry Kart]

Yes I agree. It's odd that a singer with such a reputation for understanding the deeper meaning of lyrics should so dreadfully misunderstand this one. I wonder if Sinatra was letting his desire to come across as "naughty" (misogynous) and call women tramps and broads overcame his better instincts here.

But didn't Sinatra more or less sing it that way (for the first time?) in the 1957 film version of "Pal Joey," where the dramatic setting (who is singing the song to whom and why) and thus the interpretation would have been largely determined by the script and the film's director, not by Sinatra's own predilictions?

[JSngry]

I always thought that Sinatra's reading was one of appreciation of his kind of "broad", one who's as dismissive of presumptuous pretension as he himself was (or felt he was). Certainly not misogynistic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF8UEWYDpDc

IIRC (and it's been a while), isn't the gist of the movie the competition between the Hayworth & Novak characters for Sinatra's affections. and isn't Hayworth a former stripper turned society diva & Novak a naive/simple type? More than that I don't remember, but it seems that Sinatra is either defending the Novak character, or reminding the Hayworth character of how he used to like her better when she was a "tramp", i.e. - somebody less concerned with putting on airs. But maybe I'm getting that part wrong.

Either way, I've never heard the song as a put-down, at least not of the subject of the song. It's always seemed like a put-down of pretense to me.

[AllenLowe]

I always heard it as "hates California, it gives her the cramps." Too many requests at too many weddings.