Inspired by the thread on Brandy and because I woke up with this earworm in my head and I cannot get it out…
Cher’s 1971 song Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves relates the narrator’s childhood in a travelling carnival-type show in the American south. We know it is the south because the song references Mobile and Memphis. It’s apparently a family operation which travels by wagon from town to town, living on the fringes of society, reviled by the respectable folk. Papa is an itinerant preacher of sorts who also sells moonshine and seems to run a gambling operation after dark. The ladies dance for an audience who throws money. Whether this is a striptease or an exhibition of folk dancing isn’t clear. Possibly it’s the latter by day for family-friendly entertainment and the former by night when all the men with their money come around.
So when was this going on? Certainly by 1971 liquor, legalized gambling and strip clubs were available so nobody had to seek out nomadic performers for these entertainments. It seems that the “travelling show” could have operated any time between the late 1800’s and the end of Prohibition. What does the Dope think?
Weird…I just heard this song watching the latest season of “The Umbrella Academy” last night and realized I have missed that song.
I have no idea when I first heard it. I would have been four years-old at the time it came out.
Gambling, not so much. Other than in portions of Nevada, in most states (and especially in the southern U.S.), gambling was entirely illegal, or close to it, at that time. Exceptions in certain states would have been things like church bingo nights, and in-person parimutuel wagering on certain sports (horse and/or greyhound racing, and jai alai).
In the mid '70s, Atlantic City, NJ legalized casino gambling, and some states began to start state lotteries. Not too long after that, some states began to allow Native American tribes to open casinos, as well.
State lotteries is what I was thinking of but even so…the narrator is looking back on her childhood some years or decades prior. We don’t know when she was born so when could all this have happened?
I’m leaning toward around 1880-1900 myself based mostly on the wagon being the primary mode of transport. But it is open to interpretation
My understanding is that it wasn’t until the 1920s when ownership/usage of automobiles became more widespread, so a family or group which still traveled by horse-drawn wagons was probably still perfectly plausible until then, if not a little later. Given the moonshine and Prohibition angle, that might make the most sense.
I always envisioned something like in the Andy Griffith episode Banjo-Playing Deputy. I can’t find a clip of the actual dance, but you’ve probably seen the episode anyway.
I’ve noticed common it was for 1960s sitcoms to have an episode involving gypsies, and if they aren’t reading fortunes or suspected of crimes, they are probably dancing.
The TV series Carnivale was set in the 1930s I think. I figure the song was about that era, but who knows. Maybe it was still going on in Cher’s real childhood and she was remembering actual shows she’d seen.
FWIW, Cher didn’t write the song; it was written by songwriter Bob Stone (born in 1941, according to Discogs). According to Wikipedia, he wrote it specifically for Cher to record, but it’s unclear if she had any involvement in creating it or contributing ideas for it.
I always thought that “a couple bottles of Doctor Good” was snake oil, perhaps hair restorer or some other quack medicine.
But the quack medicine might also have high alcohol content (see: a different episode of Andy Griffith).
Yes, it is open to interpretation. The song may be motivated by that which is noteworthy. So, it may be that the song is noting that the mode of transport was by wagon because by the time the song was written, the wagon, as a mode of transport was no longer as prevalent and therefore noteworthy. That is, written later on in the twentieth century. Though I agree, open to interpretation.
For historical context, my mother was a teenager in the late 1940s, in Freeport Illinois. A party of Roma was camped in a field outside of town, with their wagon and horses. No patent medicines or belly dancers, just a mobile swap meet.
The radio she’d listen to on the front porch disappeared one night. A Stephenson County deputy went to the camp the next day and returned it to her. They probably hadn’t stolen it themselves, just accepted it on faith good or otherwise.
I usually picture it 1890’s to 1920’s. But every now and then, I can see 40’s or 50’s with an “Ode to Billy Joe” vibe.
Yes, I think that is a good way of describing it.
In December 1966, The Big Valley had their episode about Gypsies.
Like Brandy, I took the song as contemporary to the time it was released. “Wagon” doesn’t have to be horse drawn.
As far as what kind of wagon, all you have to do is watch the video:
The timeline of the song spans two generations so it can’t all be contemporary.
It spans about a year.
“I was born in the wagon of a traveling show” is the singer, born circa 1955 (1971-16) singing contemporary to the song. The first verse sets the stage, the second describes recent events.
“She was born in the wagon of a traveling show” is the singer’s daughter, conceived with that boy from south of Mobile, who “taught her well” in things her folks wished she hadn’t learned so quickly. (But hey, they’re tramps, per the song.) The last verse is her singing about her recently-born child. The cycle continues,
I went to college at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, home of the inventors of barbed wire. One of them, Isaac Ellswood, owned a Victorian mansion that was also home to his wife and seven children and visited by dignitaries such as Teddy Roosevelt. In the nursery on an upper floor was a beautiful doll carriage made of intricately woven twigs. Ellsworth used to let Roma people camp on his land when they passed through, and they made the carriage for a little Ellswood daughter in gratitude.
When I first heard the Cher song as a teen, I imagined it was contemporary, but since touring the Ellswood home, I’ve envisioned at as being set around 1880 for no reason other than that doll carriage. I guess what we’ve seen influences what we imagine.
