I Want A Girl (Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad)

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I Want A Girl (Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad) (sometimes shortened to "I Want A Girl") is a popular song of 1911 composed by Harry Von Tilzer and with lyrics by William Dillon, which has become a barbershop quartet standard.

Von Tilzer and Dillon had never written a song together before, but finding themselves on the same vaudeville bill, von Tilzer suggested they might collaborate on some songs while on the road. Dillon had already had some success with "girl" songs such as "I'd Rather Have a Girlie Than an Automobile", so von Tilzer suggested they try another in that vein. The song came together in February 1911, and was published on March 11, 1911. While singers immediately took to it, Dillon and von Tilzer did not use it much themselves.

Yet, the song was one of the most popular of 1911, bested only by Alexander's Ragtime Band by Irving Berlin. According to Dillon's 1966 obituary in The New York Times, the song sold over five million score sheets and recordings.

Among many subsequent appearances in pop culture, the song appears in the 1944 film Show Business, the 1946 film The Jolson Story, the Outlast DLC Whistleblower, and an episode of the 1980s cartoon DuckTales.

Since the song refers to a young man wanting to find a wife like his mother, it is perhaps inevitable that some commentators have suggested, with varying degrees of seriousness, that the song's title and lyrics promote an Oedipus complex.

Video I Want A Girl (Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad)

Lyrics

Verse
When I was a boy my mother often said to me
Get married boy and see how happy you will be
I have looked all over, but no girlie can I find,
Who seems to be just like the little girl I have in mind,
I will have to look around until the right one I have found.

Chorus
I want a girl, just like the girl that married dear old Dad
She was a pearl and the only girl that Daddy ever had,
A good old fashioned girl with heart so true,
One who loves nobody else but you,
I want a girl, just like the girl that married dear old Dad.

Verse 2
By the old mill stream there sit a couple old and gray,
Though years have rolled away, their hearts are young today.
Mother dear looks up at Dad with love light in her eye,
He steals a kiss, a fond embrace, while ev'ning breezes sigh,
They're as happy as can be, so that's the kind of love for me.

Maps I Want A Girl (Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad)

Notable recordings

• Columbia Quartette (29 May 1911)
• American Quartet with Walter Van Brunt (27 July 1911)
• Dorothy Ward (January 1913)
• Ella Retford (1920s?)
• Dan Hornsby Trio (1928) Columbia
• Al Jolson (28 November 1947)
• Frankie Carle (1948)
• Four Lovers (1956)
• Eddie Gluskin (2013)
• Singing Mushrooms from Kings Dominion (1975-1990;2014-)

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References

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External links

• 1911 recording by American Quartet (Library of Congress)
• Sheet Music at Levy Sheet Music Collection

Source of article : Wikipedia