[78-L] Chalking up a "borrowed" song idea (was: Kate Smith stamp)

[Michael Biel]

I've been trying to figure out who accidentally merged my paragraph
about "She Gave Them All the Ha Ha Ha" with the statement "That's a line
from "Huggin' And Chalkin" (1946-7)." as if I said it. (Could it have
been  "L78rpm at aol.com" aka "pc" whoever he is??) I didn't add that
sentence because I don't know the later song.  So I checked it out and
it seems that Hoagy Carmichael STOLE the idea from the song I discussed
that was written and recorded twenty five years  earlier!!  I see it
listed as recorded by Eddie Cantor, but I have it on a Phantasie Concert
pasteover label (the original might have been a Lyric (?)). 

Hoagy put it in the 40s:

"You have to take a piece of chalk in your hand
And hug a ways and chalk a mark to see where you began
One day I was a-huggin' and a-chalkin' and a-chalkin' and a-huggin' away
When I met another fella with some chalk in his hand
A-comin' around the other way over the mountain"

The older song from 1920 goes:

"I never get my arms around her, 
But one night I tried.
I got three-quarters way around her, 
Then I almost died,
For I met another fellow coming 'round the other side,
And she gave us both the Ha Ha Ha, 
The Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha."

So somewhere in the deep recesses of Hoagy's mind was this earlier song
which he unconsciously stole, er, borrowed from.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com 


mbiel at mbiel.com writes (all but the final line, of course):

Just before Kate's stardom and during the era of Vaughn DeLeath, there
was a popular song in the 20s "She Gave Them All the Ha Ha Ha" about a
lovable "girl about 5'4" who weighs 200 pounds or more", who when the
singer hugged her "met another fellow coming 'round the other side". 
That's a line from "Huggin' And Chalkin" (1946-7).
 

pc