TA RA RA BOOM DEE AY
Created on 05/01/2006Latest update on 07/12/2021
Artist: Lottie Collins
Author: Angelo Asher/Richard Morton
Year: 1891
Vaudeville sensation, with this Can-can the personification of the 'naughty nineties'. It was truly the Anarchy In The UK of it's day, driving puritans nuts, this and that side of the ocean. She used to bring her act to four theatres a night, banging a big drum, showing her legs around. A full century later one of her suspender belts was auctioned at Sotheby's. Lottie was an icon, an American in Paris and London, where her trademark dance routine took shape. Basically the tune already existed on American soil in one way or another. Benjamin Cooper in the New York Review of May 21, 1910, asserted that it was an adaptation of old jubilee song I've Been Redeemed, while in the secular field the tune is rumoured to originate as black singer Mama Lou's theme in Babe Connor's, a St. Louis cabaret. As A Sweet Tuxedo Girl Am I it was credited to Henry J. Sayers and performed in a minstrel farce comedy by Mamie Gilroy, before he gave it to Lottie Collins as I Couldn't Say No. Once in Europe, definitive lyrics (Richard Morton) and arrangement (Angelo Asher, London music hall director) caused a ruckus, fueled by her daring can-can routine and price tag. Lottie Collins died young in 1910. Like Elvis she was 42. London periodical The Era speculated "the frenzied activity, the fierce energy, the complete abandon" took its toll much too early.
Covers:
- 1891:
Len Spencer [first American star of the grammophone era; n°1 US as Ta Ra Ra Boom Der E]
- 1891:
Emile Berliner [the inventor of the grammophone disc at one of his earliest experiments (see also: Auld Lang Syne)]
- 1892:
- 1892:
Jules Massenet [part of his lyrical drama Werther]
- 1892:
Adolf Zink [Lilliputian in the American revue Candy]
- 1893:
Polaire [French version; star of the caf' conc' circuit]
- 1894:
Abrahamson & Van Straaten [hit NL following the murder of a preacher's wife's female employee, leading to a life sentence in prison for Dominee Johan Berger]
- 1916:
Joe Hill [with own lyrics]
- 1939:
- 1942:
- 1953:
- 1957:
- 1960s:
Dilly Sisters [in children variety show The Banana Splits Adventure Hour]
- 1966:
- 1966:
Dikke Leo [as Geef Ons Nog 'n Tournee]
- 1969:
- 1981:
- 1994:
Mama's Jasje [as Onzen Bok Is Dood]
Also a widely popular, enemy demoralizing football stadium chant in Europe.
