Origins: Bell-Bottom Trousers

Subject: Origins: Bell-Bottom Trousers
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 10:28 PM

Comment on this song is scattered through various threads. The usual tune of "Bell-Bottom Trousers," it now turns out, is nearly the same as the stanzaic part of the otherwise unrelated "Uncle Sam's Farm," by Jesse Hutchinson, Jr. That 1850 sheet music is visible in The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection at Johns Hopkins University.
So even in its supposedly modern "college" form, the ribald song may be older than suspected. Early forms of the lyrics are well known from the nineteenth century under titles such as "Home, Dearest Home." The modern song is attested in both British and American armies during World War I (1914-1918).

Subject: RE: Origins: Bell-Bottom Trousers
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 11:53 PM

Just how old are the Navy's bell-bottom trousers?

The Trad Ballad Index points a finger at the Henley poem, "O Falmouth is a fine town," 1870s, but a lot of changes have to take place to get to the bell-bottoms, and there are earlier songs that come closer to "Bell-bottom trousers."

Rosemary Lane was changed to Royal Mint Street near the end of the 18th c. (not entirely sure of this yet) and this would put this branch of the song back to that date.
Randolph-Legman mention The Northern Lasses Lamentation of ca. 1690, a broadside, which has the verse:

She called for a candle to light him up to bed,
And a napkin to bind around his head,
She led him up to bed as a maiden ought to do,
And the sailor boy says, There's room enough for two.

At the Bodleian I could find only Northern Nanny or the Loving Lasses Lamentation which seems quite different in content.

The roots of the song seem to be 17th c., but I would really like to know when the 'bell-bottom' version first came in.

Subject: RE: Origins: Bell-Bottom Trousers
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 12:21 AM

There's a recording of "Uncle Sam's Farm" here (click) at the American Memory Collection. Our primary "origins" thread for "Bell-Bottom Trousers" is here (click)

Subject: RE: Origins: Bell-Bottom Trousers
From: LadyJean
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 12:34 AM

My dear old mother sang that line as, "And I like a foolish maid, thinking it no harm. Jumped into the sailor's bed to keep the sailor warm."

I've also heard a chorus of a seriously bowdlerized version, "Bell bottom trousers and coats of navy blue, she loved a sailor and a sailor loved her too."

Subject: RE: Origins: Bell-Bottom Trousers
From: GUEST,Lighter at work
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 09:56 AM

BTW, I was the GUEST of Apr. 14, '03 in thread 6924. Honest.

Brand's versions are at several places on the Net. I'm not certain of the origin or earlier form of the "Prince George Hotel" version, but Brand's "Drury Lane" form combines two songs; the "Samson" stanza appears to be Brand's own contribution.

Subject: RE: Origins: Bell-Bottom Trousers
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Oct 26 - 07:15 AM

"The Northern Lasses Lamentation," cited by Randolph-Legman and the late, great Frank Staplin above, is here:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/B04520.0001.001/1:1?rgn=div1&view=fulltext

It is dated to about 1675.

It does not contain the "sailor boy" verse.

But it does have the refrain:

"O the Oak, the Ash, and the bonny Jvy Tree,
They flourish most bravely in our Country."

(They used to use capital J's for capital I's.)

That's the sole similarity to the predecessors of "Bell-Bottom Trousers."