Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away

Subject: today's the day we give babies away
From: concon
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 12:40 PM

There is an old Irish or Scotch or somewhere folk song that's about a housewife that's having a bad day. When the baby starts to cry, she picks it up, sits in a rocker and rocks furiously while singing:

"Today's the day we give babies away with half a loaf of bread."

I heard this song years ago on the radio and have no idea what it's name is or who sings it or where to find it. It has driven me crazy for years.

Have you ever heard of it?

Thanks, Connie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 01:02 PM

Yes, I have - but that is all I can say! Check some old Clancy Brothers record covers? Maybe the one where they sing Weela Walia?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 01:05 PM

See this entry in the DT: BABY-ROCKING MEDLEY (Rosalie Sorrels)

Unlikely to be Irish or Scottish; home-grown American most likely (though I can't speak for the tune, which I haven't heard).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 01:05 PM

I found a snippet with tea instead of bread, but not the whole song. See here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 01:41 PM

Steve Roud's folksong index lists it only in Combs' 'Folk-Songs of the Southern United States'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST,robinia
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 02:37 PM

Yes, I remember "This is the day we give babies away" from an old Rosalie Sorrels (or Bonnie Dobson??) children's record. It had the two verses Malcolm cites (but not the lead-in complaint) and was paired with the "Island way out in the sea." It wasn't until I read the jacket notes, which said that the song was popular in Western bars, that I woke up to the spirit in which it could be sung ...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 05:36 PM

Since the song is an infant lullaby, it doesn't need many verses. You just sing the same damn verses over and over until the baby falls asleep from boredom, or you fall asleep from exhaustion. However, I like to add the following (original) verse:

Oh this is the day we give babies away
With a half a pound of tea
If you've got the feeling you'd like some Darjeeling
We'll throw it in for free

Jacob (father of an infant who sleeps very well, thank God)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 06:35 PM

I was thought Rosalie wrote it...*shrug*...she made it temporarily famous 15-20 years ago...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST,robinia
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 07:00 PM

"if you know any ladies who want any babies/ just send them around to me" -- now that does strike me as a unusually suggestive "infant lullaby," which is not to say it's inappropriate... I think babies appreciate just about anything you sing to them, especially if it has a good rousing rhythm, which "this is the day we give babies away" has; it also has a good tune that flows very naturally (the first six notes are the same) as "Island way out in the sea, where the babies they all grow on trees"...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 07:10 PM

babies are like dogs...if say it in a sweet, lulling tone, you can say anything ---and get out LOTS of hostility...*big grin*

"What will we do with the baby-o,
If he won't go to sleepy-o?"
Every time the baby cries,
Poke our finger in the baby's eyes"

"Come, stupid, worthless doggie...do your business, and let me get out of this rain!" (said in the MOST gentle manner!~)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Harold W
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 11:18 PM

Ah... you youngsters. I don't know if it was ever was a song, but an expression used back in the days of grocery stores when people did not have baby scales. On shopping days mothers used to take the babies in to the store and the clerk put the babies on the scale. Hence the expression is, "This is the day they give babies 'a weigh' with a half apound of tea."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 11:54 PM

I have a funny connection with this song: back in 1965, my wife and I put in for adoption. During the long interviewing process, we were visited at home by our "adoption caseworker." She turned out to be a really fun lady. Through subsequent visits, while she got to know us, and us her, I once grabbed my guitar and sang this song. My wife was horrified and I was indeed quite relieved when the caseworker burst into laughter. Something must have worked, as we received son Peter when he was 6 weeks old. He is now 37! CHEERS, Bob

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BABY TREE (Rosalie Sorrells)
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 08:41 PM

Rosalie Sorrells wrote the song, "THE BABY TREE," and our company, Geordie Music Publishing Co., published it for her in 1970. A few years later, she formed her own publishing company and we assigned her songs to her (I believe her company is Grimes Music). I don't think she'd mind my setting down the words here- it's a charming song!

There's an island way out in the sea
Where the babies they all grow on trees,
And it's jolly good fun to swing in the sun
But you gotta watch out if you sneeze, sneeze,
You gotta watch out if you sneeze.

Yes you gotta watch out if you sneeze,
For swingin' up there in the trees
You're liable to cough-you might very well fall off
And tumble down flop on your knees, knees,
Tumble down flop on your knees.

(Occasional chorus-different tune)
O this is the day they give babies away
With a half a cup of tea-
If you know any ladies who want any babies
Just send 'em around to me...

Then when the stormy winds wail
And the breezes blow high in a gale,
There's a curious dropping and flopping and plopping
And fat little babies just hail, hail,
Fat little babies just hail!

And the babies lie there in a pile
And the grown-ups come after awhile,
And they always pass by all the babies that cry
And take only babies that smile, smile,
They take only babies that smile.
Even triplets and twins if they'll smile!
(Words & music by Rosale Sorrells Grimes Music)

I guess you'll have to find the tune on one of Rosalie's albums- it was on one of her early ones. Hope this clears up some wonder-ings for you! Jean

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 08:53 PM

Malcolm- Apologies; I hadn't clicked on your Baby-Rocking Medley, and didn't know you'd given the lyric already. One more thing. BillD, that's one of my "Baby-O" verses; I made up that one and the, "Pour a little moonshine in his mouth" one. Rosalie used to sing that version of "Baby-o" to sort of introduce her "Baby Tree" song.

And by the way, "Baby Tree" was recorded by Jefferson Airplane in the seventies, and Paul Kantner's "Blows Against the Empire" album.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: CapriUni
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 10:59 PM

According to my mother, this was the first advertising jingle, for the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P stores), and it was a sales gimmick; around the time that cameras were a newfangled thing, the store was giving away photos of babies to anyone who bought a half-pound of tea.

The lyrics were:

Today's the day
we give babies away
with half a pound of tea.
If you know any lady who wants a baby
Just send her 'round to me!

(also according to my mother, she sang this on the way to the hospital to deliver me!) ;-)

So naturally, I had to check this thread out -- it's my song!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Deckman
Date: 14 Aug 02 - 11:52 PM

CapriUni ... what a neat story! Thanks for sharing. Tell me please, what years? Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: CapriUni
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 12:56 AM

1964 was the year I was born... I forget the year Mom said the song was used as a jingle... 'Course, it could've been a folksong first, and got picked up and used by the store for an ad ...

If so, it certainly wouldn't be the last time...

BTW, I was born 9 weeks early, so I was a bit of a surprise!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 02:39 AM

From Bessie Fiddler, Linn, W.Va., who learned it from her mother. Collected by Carey Woofter, 1924.

To-day is the day we give babies away,
With a half a pound of tea;
If you see any ladies without any babies,
Just send them around to me.

Oh all you young ladies,
From near and from far;
Beware of the sailor
With the bright morning star.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 08:21 PM

I seem to remember that Rosalie said she got the basis for the song from a poem by Olive Burt (not too sure about that name, and can't locate her book nor Rosalie's record, but I think that's right, that she started with that poem). I'll have to write to her...why doesn't everyone have email??? But I'd love to find out more about the ad, and which came first, the song (or poem) or the ad. Jean

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: CapriUni
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 08:44 PM

.... Hmmm... I don't even know if it was ever an ad.

All I have is my mother's story, and I don't know where she got her information...

Hmmm...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Aug 02 - 09:18 PM

Olive Wolley Burt, author of 'American Murder Ballads'. I've heard Rosalie sing some songs from that book, or directly from Olve Burt.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Frivolous Sal
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 01:11 PM

My mother also told me it was an ad, or a jingle based on the fact that at the time green stamps were a serious thing, and everyone used them. She would date the song as 1930s.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Frivolous Sal
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 01:35 PM

Ohhhh--Today is the day we give babies away
       with a half a pound of tea.
       Just open the lid
       and out pops a kid
       with a half a pound of tea.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 01:57 PM

In the thirties my father sang

All of you ladies who haven't got babies
Just come along with me
For this is the day that we give them away
With a half-a-pound of tea...

…but I had the idea that it came from earlier in the century; don't know why.

And I heard it was a send-up of the A&P's custom of giving away premiums with tea.

clint

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 01:59 PM

Today is the day they give babies away, with half a pound of tea,
You open the lid and out jumps a kid with half a pound of tea.

In notes on the Ragtime hit, "Yankee Bird," 1910, the piece is a march and wo-step based on "The gal I Left Behind Me," and "This is the Day They Give Babies Away."
http://www-kmadg.svf.stuba.sk/jmkollar/midi/primeline/midnot_s.htm# and scroll way down.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 02:04 PM

yankee bird

Got cut off- Listen to the midi (click on Return to hear)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 06:44 PM

I remember we used a fake cockney accent, day, away and tea all rhymed with die. Never having met a cockney, I'm sure that would make one cringe.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: LadyJean
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 12:53 AM

My mother was a silver haired lady, who favored conservative clothes and sensible shoes. You have not idea how badly she shocked my friend Nils by singing "If you know any ladies who want any babies just send them around to me". Nils knew the sanitary version.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: cetmst
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 06:55 AM

Sing Out v. 20, 1971, p.5, quotes Rosalie Sorrels "Actually I only wrote the music to this one. I got the words from Olive Burt, author of 'American Murder Ballads and Their Stories'. She learned it from her mother who found it in a book of children's poetry from the early 1800's". It is recorded on a Prestige album, 'Rosalie's Songbag'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Celtaddict
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 08:19 AM

My father, in the fifties, used to sing (not that it had much of a tune, more a chant), "Today is the day they give babies away, at four o'clock in the morning." Is this something different, or a bit of an amalgam?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Nov 03 - 09:34 PM

From A Reader's Guide to William Gaddis's The Recognitions:

"The Day They Gave Babies Away" is a story by Dale Eunson that appeared in the Christmas 1946 number of Cosmopolitan, their most successful Christmas story ever. It was published as a book the following year. Perhaps more to the point, there was a soldiers' ditty circulating in the 1940s that went "Today is the day they give babies away / with a half a pound of tea. / If you know any ladies who want any babies / Just send them round to me."

The William A. Graham Collection of Television Scripts at Yale University has a script called, "Today is the Day We Give Babies Away" -- an episode of a TV series called "The Eleventh Hour." It was written by Hilda Rolfe, and appeared in 1963.

"This Is the Day We Give Babies Away" by Priscilla T. Nagle, is an article in the book "The Adoption Reader: Birth Mothers, Adoptive Mothers, and Adopted Daughters Tell Their Stories," edited by Susan Wadia-Ells, 1995.

The line "Today is the day we give babies away, with half a pound of tea..." is quoted in this Autobiography of Virginia Bradford (1900-1996) -- silent movie star. It comes from a passage where the actress is reminiscing about several songs she knew as a child before 1913.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Nov 03 - 10:08 PM

Since part of a ragtime tune from 1910 is based on "This is the day they give babies away," we have to look before that date.
I have never found the adv. (anecdotal) about a brand of tea, nor can I find anything by an author or poet named Olive Burt (mentioned by Sorrels) in the proper time frame.
Origin still a mystery.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 02:49 PM

The Library of Congress lists Olive Woolley Burt, 1894-, as the author or editor of at least 54 books—mostly children's books about the West—between 1929 and 1980. One of them is "American murder ballads and their stories. Collected and edited by Olive Woolley Burt. New York, Oxford University Press, 1958." Note that Sorrells doesn't say that the song appears in any of Burt's writings.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 02:57 PM

There are several Olive Burt's. The author about the west is too late for the time frame. I couldn't find one who fit.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Jenny Islander
Date: 16 Nov 03 - 12:38 AM

They used to play this cut on my local public radio station in the '80s (I think), and the woman who sang it had an unmistakable voice, but I can't remember her name! It's live--you can hear the audience laughing--and she leads in with a little spiel about when to sing the song. Something like: "It's four o'clock in the morning. The baby is still crying. The paregoric is gone. It's gone because you drank it. That's when you take a deep breath, smile, pick that baby up in your arms, and, in your softest, kindest voice, sing 'The Hostile Baby-Rocking Song.' "

Oh, this is the day we give babies away
With a half a pound of tea.
If you know any ladies who want any babies,
Send 'em around to me.

Oh, this is the day we give babies away
With a half a pound of tea.
You open the lid and you take out the kid
With a written guarantee.

I think there's a third verse that slipped my memory.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST,T. Blair
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 10:36 PM

I heard the ditty as:

Today's the day they give babies away,
with a half a pound of tea.
Just open the lid, examine the kid,
and there you'll find the guarantee.

My mother learned it from her mother.

I understood the ditty to have come from the early colonial days and that it was Irish in origin. At least that is what I was told by an elderly Irish nun.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 11:11 PM

All we know is that it is sometime before 1910, but probably not much before.
No evidence of the rhyme before its use in a 1910 ragtime lyric, as stated before.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Little Robyn
Date: 01 May 04 - 05:37 PM

I don't recall ever hearing the song but I do remember a stock phrase that was used when I was a kid - "give you away with half a pound of tea."
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 12:13 AM

My grandmother used to sing this to my father, and I've been trying to find a copy for his birthday, any thoughts?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 07:48 PM

Please note that Rosalie Sorrells called her work BABY ROCKING MEDLEY. "Medley" implies more than one song, and probably more than one source. I think we may be barking up the wrong tree by assuming Olive Burt wrote the line "Today is the day we give babies away with a half a pound of tea," even if Sorrells did cite Burt as a source. Surely she meant a source rather than the source.

I don't have Rosalie's recording, and I don't know the tune(s). Someone who has it, please tell me: Can you tell if there's more than one tune in the medley? Can you identify where one tune ends and the next begins? (Please refer to the lyrics in the DT.) Can you identify any of the tunes?

I remember the tune that my ex-mother-in-law (now deceased) used when she sang "Today is the day…." I think it's the opening bars of a Sousa march, but I don't know its name. I'm hoping someone else will know. If not, I might try listening to several Sousa marches until I recognize it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Feb 06 - 10:15 PM

??Where is the beginning of this thread? My first posting is (to me at least) obviously an answer to the original question... and I do remember not starting this one...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST,M.Ted
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 01:06 AM

"There's an Island Way off in the sea" is one melody, and "This is the day we give babies away" is another--I have it on vinyl, but my turntable has not be operational for about six years--elsewise I'd convey you a copy--it is delightful and amusing, both on record, and live--

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Stewie
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 03:00 AM

Mrrzy, click on 'Printer Friendly' link at the top of the page and it should put the messages in proper order. Joe Offer gave this tip some time ago.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST,Galley
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 11:20 AM

In response to Q who dated the ditty "Today's the day they give babies away with half a pound of tea; open the lid and out jumps the kid with a written guarantee" to around 1910 or slightly earlier. Can you tell me the source for the information? I'm doing research on baby-farming in America during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and this sounds like a rhyme that might have been a social comment on the practice.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 04:41 PM

Google Book Search found a book with this description:

Title: Sunset [volume XXVIII]
Publisher: Passenger Dept., Southern Pacific Co.
Author(s): Southern Pacific Company. Passenger Dept, Southern Pacific Company
Publication Date: 1898

It contains a short story called "The Ten Thousand Dollar Baby," by Agnes Foster Buchanan, which contains this bit of dialogue:

"Well, where's the baby?" ...
"What baby? What are you talking about?" ...
"The baby you're whistling about" returned the other lightly.
"Oh, this is the day we give babies away
With a half a pound of tea!"
he sang as they entered the club together....

So not only the words, but also the tune was familiar by 1898.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 08:25 AM

Oops! I gave some wrong information about that last quote. (Google's information was a bit confusing.) The book (or magazine) I quoted from was one of a series that began in 1898, but this particular volume was published in 1912—as you can see by displaying the title page.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST,degener
Date: 05 Jul 07 - 09:25 AM

my father used to sing a slightly different version - "Today is the day they give babies away for a half a keg of beer." I suspect it was a fraternity drinking song version of the more popular lyrics. Has anyone a comment on these lyrics?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 09:45 PM

Hi
My grandfather used to sing whn we were kids quite a long version of the song- that was what I was trying to find when I saw this thread.


todays the day we give babies away with half a pound of tea
You lift up the lid and there is a kid with a written guarantee

there were other verses that followed

isn't it a pity shes only one titty to feed the baby on. The poor litter bugger he couldn't play rugger ( i.e Rugby football) he's not sufficiently strong

tra la la la

then some verse about the queen of all the fairys (which sounds now that I hear it to be some reference to homosexuality- didn't pick up on it as a kid)

will ask my cousin- he used to know all the words and sing it all the time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: GUEST,Jesse
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 08:41 PM

Re: This Is The Day They Give Babies Away.

To the person who remembers a lady singer singing this song, I think it was Gracie Fields.

My mother remembers that during the 1930s in Vancouver, B.C. Canada it was regularly played on the radio by Billy Brown on his Breakfast Club which ran for years on radio station C J O R 600 Kc.

Gracie Fields also use to recite a little poem, as follows.

Don't throw stones at your mother,
She never threw stone at you,
Don't throw stones at your mother,
You'll be sorry if you do;
When you were just a little child,
She'd tuck you in your bed,
so, don't throw stones at your mother-
Throw rocks at your father instead:

Cheers

Jesse Oliver

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: today's the day we give babies away
From: Y_Not
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 09:56 AM

There is a film from the 1950s "The Day they Gave Babies Away" starring Glynnis Jones, a real tear jerker.
I wonder if there is any link to the song?