Tramp, The

"The Tramp" as sung by Jon Wilks:

An old tramp was resting
One day down by the lane
When a gang of young sportsmen came by
They passed many jokes on his old tattr'd coat
And the tramp he look up and he sighed

You may laugh, you may chaff
Just because I am down in the world
When you find out to your sorrow
You're up today and down tomorrow
Well you can't put a stop to misfortune
For whatever will be will be
I might have been up in the world like you
And you might have been down like me

"He looks just like a scarecrow"
Said some young fellow there
"Like a bag of old rags left untied"
And the sportsmen they laughed
At the joke of their friend
And the tramp he looked up and replied

Misfortune it came down
Through the top of my hat
And lower and lower I feel
And from this day to that
When the sportsmen they met
They'd recount the old tramp's ordeal

A sentimental song from the Halls remembered by several traditional English singers, it was originally associated with Music Hall performer Ida Barr, from a time before she became particularly associated with ragtime (her brief biography appears below). It was written by Charles Collins and Harry Castling. At some point I hope to be able to access the sheet music to provide the original lyrics, but for now I have provided the excellent version sung by Jon Wilks, who talks about the song in the YouTube clip below.

Ida Barr (1882-1967) originally sang under the name Maud Laverne. Her father was a soldier and she was born in Regent Park’s barracks in London. At the age of 15, much to her father’s disapproval, she ran away to become a chorus girl, making her stage debut in 1898 in Belfast. In 1910 she changed her name to Ida Barr and was briefly a successful performer in New York. She returned to England in 1911 and became arguably England’s best known ragtime singer – she popularised Nat D Ayer’s Oh you beautiful doll (1910) and Irving Berlin’s Everybody’s doin’ it now (1911) in the Halls. She continued to perform in the 30s and 40s but would have ended her days in poverty in the 1960s were it not for a revival of interest in the Halls that a very late boost to her career.