"In the Good Old Summer Time" is an American Tin Pan Alley song first published in 1902 with music by George Evans and lyrics by Ren Shields.[1] The song is in the public domain.
Background
Shields and Evans were at first unsuccessful in trying to sell the song to one of New York's big sheet music publishers. The publishers thought the topic of the song doomed it to be forgotten at the end of the summer season. Blanche Ring, who had helped Evans arrange the number's piano score, was enthusiastic about it and at her urging it was added to the 1902 musical comedy show The Defender she was appearing in. The song was a hit from the opening night, with the audience often joining in singing the chorus.[2]
"In the Good Old Summer Time" was one of the big hits of the era, selling popular sheet music and being recorded by various artists of the day, including John Philip Sousa's band in 1903. It has remained a standard often revived in the decades since.
The song appeared in many films, including the 1949 Judy Garland film named after it, In the Good Old Summertime. The book Elmer Gantry opens with the title character drunkenly singing the song in the saloon. It is also prominently featured in "The Picnic", an early Mickey Mouse cartoon from 1930.
The chorus is used with a slight twist in the "baby mine" lyric before resuming to the "tootsie-wootsie" lyric in a commercial for Off! bug spray that aired during the summer of 1975.
The song appeared in the episode titled Tipping the Scales of the hit PBS show Arthur, and featured in the 1930 Laurel and Hardy short Below Zero in ironical terms, sung during a snowstorm.
The song was sung during a wedding in the opening chapter of Upton Sinclair's novel "The Jungle".
The chorus is used with a slight twist in Baylor University's Alma Mater, "That Good Old Baylor Line."
There's a time in each year
That we always hold dear,
Good old summer time;
With the birds and the trees-es,
And sweet scented breezes,
Good old summer time,
When your day's work is over
Then you are in clover,
And life is one beautiful rhyme,
No trouble annoying,
Each one is enjoying,
The good old summer time.
In the good old summer time,
In the good old summer time,
Strolling thro' the shady lanes
With your baby mine;
You hold her hand and she holds yours,
And that's a very good sign
That she's your tootsie wootsie
In the good old summer time.
To swim in the pool,
You'd play "hooky" from school,
Good old summer time;
You'd play "ring-a-rosie"
With Jim, Kate and Josie,
Good old summer time,
Those days full of pleasure
We now fondly treasure,
When we never thought it a crime
To go stealing cherries,
With face brown as berries,
Good old summer time.
In the good old summer time,
In the good old summer time,
Strolling thro' the shady lanes
With your baby mine;
You hold her hand and she holds yours,
And that's a very good sign
That she's your tootsie wootsie
In the good old summer time.
The original publication includes extensive additional lyrics by Ren Shields that are seldom performed.[3]
