Hearing the Americas

When Old Bill Bailey Plays the Ukelele

1916

Rosario Bourdon and Charles McCarron

Victor

Camden, NJ

78 rpm record

In this song, recorded by the extremely popular vaudeville singer Norah Nayes, Bill Bailey is 14 years older and has moved to Hawaii, where he takes up the Ukulele. Bayes aimed to cash on the fad for Hawaiian music which started around 1910, while also associating Bailey with “ragtime,” another extremely popular fad of the era. The song combines lingering minstrel stereotypes with images of Hula girls and swaying palms: it mentions “suffragettes” who fail to convert “those gals of brown” because of Bailey’s music. Notice the instrumental opening, which includes the typical exaggerated pitch bends starting at 9 seconds, or when Bayes sings “miles around” at about 27 seconds.

In Honolulu town,
a man known miles around
Has turned things upside down
They call him Old Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey won his fame
with his old guitar
Ukalele is its name
in that land a far
The ships ‘way out at sea
Can hear his melody .
Chorus
When Old Bill Bailey plays the Ukalele
Down in Honolula they do the "hula Hula"
Ev'ry evening there they are,
swayin' while he's playin' his Hawaiian guitar
The ragtime motion
even has the ocean
bobbin' up and down,
Sometimes a whale gets feeling flip
Wags his tail and sinks a battle ship
When Old Bill Bailey plays the Ukalele
Down in Honolulu town.

When Old Bill Bailey plays the Ukalele Down in Honolula they do the "Hula Hula" Ev'ry evening there they are, swayin' while he's playin' his Hawaiian guitar


Some Suffragettes went down,
to Honolulu town
Among those gals of brown
They tried a “Suffrage Movement”
The meetings that they held
never lasted long
Old Bill Bailey broke them up
when he played a song,
For Suffrage they don’t care
There’s other “move ments” there.
(Chorus)