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

[David Lennick]

Don'tcha go a-blamin' Hoagy..the song was written by Clancy Hayes and Kermit 
Goell, and was also a hit for The Old Professor.

dl

Michael Biel wrote:
> 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
>