Son of a Gambolier
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-04-07

Day 22 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series  (folksongindex.com)

SING ALONG ON THE CHORUS. JUST LET IT RIP. If you are sheltering in place, nobody is going to hear you—except your family {and they already think you are weird).

Carl Sandburg wrote about "The Son of a Gambler: in his 1927 Songbag: "Misery with a light-hearted lilt .... a far-flung companion of roving men."

"In 1869, G.K. Ward. A.B. Kelly, & J. C. Pennington printed the anonymous song and its tune in Carmina Princetonia." This version is entitled "Son of a Gambolier. A Nassau Song." Lighter concludes, "My guess is that the song began as a vaudeville piece ca1860 and was more than once rewritten for the stage, whence Harvard, Princeton, and (presumably) Yale quickly appropriated it.". (researcher  Jonathan Lighter quoted in the Traditional Ballad Index.)