If you knew Susie

AKA
Lyrics Joseph Meyer Music BG de Sylva Roud V53405

Music Hall performers Ella Shields 1920s, 30s
Folk performances ? 

I have got a sweetie known as Susie
In the words of Shakespeare she's a 'wow'
Though all of you may know her too
I'd like to shout right now

If you knew Susie like I know Susie
Oh Oh, Oh what a girl
There's none so classy as this fair Lassie
Oh, Oh Holy Moses what a chassis
We went riding - she didn't balk
From the country I'm the one that had to walk
If you knew Susie like I know Susie
Oh, Oh what a girl

Susie had a perfect reputation
No one ever saw her on a spree
Nobody knows where Susie goes
Nobody knows but me

If you knew Susie like I know Susie
Oh, Oh, Oh what a girl
She wears long tresses and nice tight dresses
Oh, Oh what a future she possesses
Out in public how she can yawn
In a parlour you would think the war was on
If you knew Susie like I know Susie
Oh, Oh what a girl

If You Knew Susie must rank with the most popular songs in the 20th century – it was sung with great success by Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor, but it was also a big hit in the Halls for Ella Shields. In some ways, this song represents the sort of thing that eventually would spell the end of the Music Halls: it bears the traces of ragtime swing, it features heavily in a number of movies, was a big radio hit: all things that in the end (it has been argued) led to the end of music Hall.

If you knew Susie is not, as far as I know, a song that has been widely adopted by singers who regard themselves as part of the folk tradition….

Ella Shields (1879 to 1952), billed as “The Ideal of Ideals”, was born in America and started her career there in 1898. She came to the UK in 1904 as a blackface entertainer, but soon dropped that part of her act, appearing without black face make up as the principal girl in the 1904/05 pantomime at The Pavillion Mile End. She debuted as a male impersonator in her characteristic top hat and tails in 1910 and from that point on it was the biggest part of her act. Her greatest hit was Burlington Bertie from Bow, which made her an international star, at least in the English-speaking world – she toured South Africa, Australia and America as well as the UK and Ireland.

Ella was far from a one-hit wonder, and as well as Burlington Bertie and If You Knew Susie her hits included Oh! It’s a Lovely War, Show me the Way to go Home, I’m not all there and Why did I kiss that girl? She starred in the Thanks for the memory revival shows of the late 1940s before passing away in 1952.

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Ella Shields sings it: