Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey

1902 sheet music cover

"(Won't You Come Home) Bill Bailey", originally titled "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home?" is a popular song published in 1902. It is commonly referred to as simply "Bill Bailey".

Its words and music were written by Hughie Cannon (1877–1912), an American songwriter and pianist. It is still a standard with Dixieland and traditional jazz bands. The simple 32-bar chord sequence of its chorus also underpins many other tunes played mainly by jazz bands, such as "Over the Waves", "Washington and Lee Swing", "Bourbon Street Parade", "My Little Girl", and the final themes of "Tiger Rag" and "The Beer Barrel Polka".

Orchestra version.

Covers

Among the artists who have covered the song are Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, Patsy Cline, Bobby Darin, Aretha Franklin from "Take a Look" (1967), Brenda Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Durante, Phish, Danny Barker, Harry Connick Jr, Renee Olstead, Michael Bublé, Sam Cooke and others. Singer and actress Della Reese recorded the song in 1961, and it entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number #98, and became a part of her performance repertoire. In Britain the Edwardian music hall star Victoria Monks (1884–1927) popularised the song in 1905 and thereafter it became her most demanded and remembered song.

Most commonly it is performed in a truncated version based on the chorus. While the chorus is much more familiar than the verse, some artists continue to perform the verse as well, sometimes as an introduction. Without the lyrics of the seldom heard verse, one doesn't know who Bill Bailey is nor why he isn't home. (An unusual approach is Bobby Darin's version, as he added his own spoken word introduction, as an aside to the mythical Bailey.)

Parodies

The Jewish-American parodist Allan Sherman recorded a parody of this song on his 1963 album My Son, the Celebrity, entitled "Won't You Come Home Disraeli?"

In the "Miss Solar System" episode of The Jetsons, first aired February 3, 1963, Jane belts out "Won't You Fly Home Bill Spacely" in Hanna-Barbera's own parody of the song.

Children's performer Tom Chapin recorded a version of this song on his album Some Assembly Required.

In The Simpsons episode "Whacking Day", Abe Simpson is featured posing as a female cabaret singer in Nazi Germany, singing this song to Adolf Hitler.

The 1980 Smurfs album, "Smurfing Sing Song", includes a version of this song entitled "Smurf Baby" which is the "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey" chorus repeated and the name "Bill Bailey" is replaced with "Smurf Baby".

In popular culture

• In The Jetsons season 1 episode "Miss Solar System", Jane Jetson sings an adaptation entitled "Won't You Fly Home, Bill Spacely?" during the beauty pageant.

• On the Canadian Brass' 1987 album Basin Street, the band is accompanied by actor and banjo player George Segal, who both plays and sings lyrics from the song on the track "Strummin' With George".

• In an episode of the British panel game QI, themed around cockney rhyming slang, Bill Bailey's buzzer which, when pressed, played Patsy Cline's version of the song. He responded sarcastically, "No-one's ever pointed that out before!"

• In an episode of the radio series I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, Tim Brooke-Taylor sang the song, with Bailey replying to each line.

• The song figures prominently in the movie "Papa's Delicate Condition" where it is not only sung several times and used as background music, but also played by a circus calliope. The general theme of the song is also echoed in the plot of the movie.

• In a continuing tradition at shows predominantly in the Carolinas Phish has performed "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home" six times, each time with Page McConnell's father, Dr. Jack McConnell on vocals and featuring a tap-dancing number.

• In the 1982 fantasy film The Last Unicorn, a butterfly sings "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey" to the Unicorn.

• In The West Wing season 4 episode "Election Night", Sam Seaborn sings the song under his breath on his way to accept a phone call from Will Bailey.

• In Drop Dead Diva season 1 episode "The Dress", Jane Bingum sings the song in a dream sequence for Judge Paula Abdul, stating later that it was a song she used to sing at camp.

• The song is played as a male/female duet by street performers in the opening scene of Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 film The Conversation.

• The song is played at the beginning of the Rugrats episode, "Music".

• A woman sings part of the song during an interview for a babysitting position in the movie Corrina Corrina.

• In the 1979 film Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Buck sings the song while he returns to Earth.

• An escaped purple gorilla sings part of the song whilst walking down a street in the first episode of Johnny Bravo.

See also

• List of pre-1920 jazz standards

External links

• Parlor Songs

Full lyric:

• http://www.perfessorbill.com/lyrics/lybailey.htm

Traditional arrangement (from the "Historic American Sheet Music" site):

• http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/n/n09/n0971/