A couple of days ago, the tune I "woke up with in my head" was kind of a "blast from my past." Waaaaay back, must have been third or fourth grade, in my elementary school's spring musical concert one kid sang this solo tune, and that tune was in my head when I woke up. I'd probably never even thought of that tune for over fifty years, but for some reason, there it was! And I wanted to identify it, and figured it would be no problem given the tremendous amount of information on the net. But, after a lot of searching and searching, nothing!

And so I figured I'd ask here if anyone knew the tune, considering the wide range and breadth of musical tastes and knowledge of the members here, not to mention some of us have "been around for awhile!" Anyway, a bit of background on the tune.

I heard it before 1960. Looking back, it could very likely be a show-tune or Broadway-type tune. Kind of a "patriotic" type tune, like you might find in... the musical "Yankee Doodle Dandy" or something. I (amazingly) remembered a reasonable amount of the lyrics, but couldn't find anything on Google or Bing, etc. This might be why! When this kid (Russel was his name) sang the tune, he came out on stage dressed like a European "immigrant" sort of, wearing a flat-cap, old fashioned work-clothes and work-boots, and even carried a big loaf of bread under his arm! And he sang the tune sort of with an accent (seemed Italian maybe to me at the time). And that's possibly why doing searches on the lyrics proved impossible. I tried it "straight" with no foreign accent-type words, and with the accent (and there could be lots of ways to type an accent, if you know what I mean (with a hyphen, or an apostrophe, or as an actual word-particle, etc, etc.

I'm going to type the lyrics below that I remember. First with the Italian-type accent as Russel sang it, and then "straight" with no accent. Anyway, here goes....

(First verse)
She's a grand-a country America
Everybody say she's-a free.
You shoppa where it says-a five and ten-a on the sign,
But everything you buy it costs a dollar thirty-nine. (possibly "she costs")

(and part of a "reprise" of sorts)

And when your pocket's out of money and you haven't got a cent,
You don't have to worry, just say "Charge it. Have it sent."
Yes, it's-a the place-a for...
It's-a the place-a for...
It's-a the place-a for me.

Now "straight"...

She's (possibly "it's") a grand country, America.
Everybody says she's free.
You shop where it says five and ten on the sign
But everything you buy it costs a dollar thirty-nine.

And if your pocket's out of money and you haven't got a cent,
You don't have to worry, just say "Charge it, Have it sent."
Yes, it's the place for...
It's the place for...
It's the place for me.


And so that's about it. I used Google, Bing, etc without the accent, and with the accent (in several different ways, for example the word "shop" I also used shoppa, shop'a, shop-pa, shop-a, etc). I checked several "patriotic" movie and show scores (like "Yankee Doodle Dandy," etc) and searched for "patriotic show-tunes," etc, etc, etc. Just about everything I could think of with no luck. All I know about the tune is after our spring musical concert (his tune "brought down the house") I asked Russel where he learned it and he just said "From my mom." (My little group, up after him, did "You'll Never Walk Alone" in three-part harmony, which received the expected polite applause. LOL))

So anyway I know this is a long-shot, but does anybody have any clues?

Read more: http://talk-music.proboards.com/thread/1003/help-identifying-tune#ixzz2QeNlX5o6