# Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves - When Were You Travelling? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** liquor-alcohol\ **Created:** [August 11, 2024, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584 "2024-08-11T23:53:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/21 "2024-08-12T06:22:59Z")
Mother and daughter were both born in a wagon. At least one of those wagons isn’t contemporary. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/22 "2024-08-12T07:00:49Z")
I thought that every night, when the men would all come around and lay their money down, it implied prostitution, rather than stripping [and not assuming that either clothed or unclothed dancing leads to sex]. It rather nicely underlined the hypocrisy that came with the verbal abuse. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/23 "2024-08-12T07:41:44Z")
I never paid that much attention to the lyrics but while listening to the video above I finally noticed the _I_ to _she_ switch. And, just looking up the lyrics, the _papa_ to _grandpa_ switch. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/24 "2024-08-12T07:56:15Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > I thought that every night, when the men would all come around and lay their money down, it implied prostitution … I always thought it implied some form of gambling. Of course, we could both be right; the song is ambiguous enough in that regard. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/25 "2024-08-12T09:06:41Z")
Patent medicine was, I always thought, alcoholic. For the most part. And some herbs or flavorings. Andy Griffith had a episode where Aunt Bea bought a bottle, as did all the church ladies. They all got tipsy(smashed, really) and even Aunt Bea was playing piano/singing and, egads forgot to cook for company(Barney). It was sold by a crazy dude who claimed to be an Indian or Friend of some famous chief or something and had a traveling sales cart of sorts on the streets of Mayberry. You never see a horse. Or dancing girls. The episode with “I Dream of Genie” star(Eden) as the manicurist at Floyd’s did the only hoochie mama role that season. I guess dancing girls were not ok’d by the PTB. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/26 "2024-08-12T10:51:03Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Mother and daughter were both born in a wagon. At least one of those wagons isn’t contemporary. Same wagon? ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/27 "2024-08-12T11:24:38Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I just heard this song watching the latest season of “The Umbrella Academy” last night… _Baby Shark, do do do do…_ The producers of that show are committing crimes against their own audience. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/28 "2024-08-12T12:24:42Z")
Funny, I’m w/ **J\_A\_Q**. As w/ Brandy both songs came out when my older sisters were collecting 45s, and top-40 ruled the radio. My pre-teen brain assumed the singers were speaking contemporaneously, and Cher was describing being born in a wagon some 20-ish years earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/29 "2024-08-12T12:35:08Z")
That was painful. Just pop the fuse for the radio already. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/30 "2024-08-12T18:56:44Z")
The musical Oklahoma! was specifically set in 1906. The character Hakim the peddler traveled in a horse drawn wagon full of trinkets. Same thing with Professor Marvel in The Wizard of Oz, at about the same time period . I’ll go with the 19-oughts for all three works, and just about the time that Brandy was working at a tavern on San Francisco’s Barbary Coast . ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/31 "2024-08-12T19:10:53Z")
> [@Toxgoddess](#): > > The ladies dance for an audience who throws money. Likely a type of belly dancing- exotic but no nudity. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > 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. Illegal gambling went on everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/32 "2024-08-12T19:18:46Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Illegal gambling went on everywhere. Oh, absolutely. I was replying to the OP’s (emphasis mine): > [@Toxgoddess](#): > > Certainly by 1971 liquor, **legalized gambling** and strip clubs were available ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/33 "2024-08-12T19:32:08Z")
‘Wagon of traveling show’ could refer to modern times as simple as a carnival trailer being towed or just a poetic reference to an RV. It clearly takes place in the US. Modern Memphis was founded in 1819. Mobile Alabama became part of the US in 1813. So we’re looking at any time between the early 19th century and 1971. The lyrics do give it a late 19th - early 20th century sound. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/34 "2024-08-12T20:00:00Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > I thought that every night, when the men would all come around and lay their money down, it implied prostitution, rather than stripping [and not assuming that either clothed or unclothed dancing leads to sex]. It rather nicely underlined the hypocrisy that came with the verbal abuse. So did I. I figured the ‘dancing’ part of the traveling show was how they made money in the daytime or early evening hours, and every night was when the men came around and ‘laid their money down’ for, y’know, extra services. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/35 "2024-08-12T20:17:21Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The lyrics do give it a late 19th - early 20th century sound. That was always my impression. The traveling shows were novelties in the dusty remote parts of the American Midwest and south in the almost pre-broadcast radio, pre-Depression, pre-Dust Bowl, pre-FDA era of patent medicines, etc. An era when shootin’ some 21yo townie and taking your caravan to the next town would likely to be a successful ploy unfoiled by local law enforcement. Clearly the song covers a timespan from when the singer was born, until the singer is age 16-17 and gives birth, and at least a bit longer when she’s now working the dance and money-throwing gig with her traveling group. But not so long that she’s now old and her father has died and her infant is now workin’ it in the family biz. By the time she’s singing it might be the twilight of that era which probably came to a near-end with the great Depression. FWIW, my grandfather was born in 1902. In the 1920s he and some other enterprising young men operated a traveling caravan of sorts that put on dirt track motorcycle races as a “Come one come all! See the amazing daredevil spectacle!!” at local county fairgrounds throughout the rural Midwest and South. That traveling show lifestyle was seen as a thoroughly disreputable but not-that-odd a thing back in the 1920s. The wheels (heh) really fell off that lifestyle not long after the Depression got going enough to hurt the hinterlands. They damned near starved when the customers dried up and he eventually bailed from the troupe and went to a big city to seek real employment. I’m going to suggest that the advent of the Great Depression, or maaybe as late as 1935, probably put the nail in the coffin of that kind of lifestyle. To be semi-resurrected in the post-WWII carnies who (sort of) continue that lifestyle to this day. So I conclude Cher’s character is probably singing during or before ~1935 about the preceding 20-25 years since she was conceived. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/36 "2024-08-12T23:08:24Z")
While snake oil “medicines” might have a good dose of alcohol in them, the total amount and the cost makes a not that hot selling product. The “Dr. Good” as in “Dr. Feelgood” would suggest an ingredient such as cocaine. Coke (the drug) really took off in the 1890s and was somewhat regulated by 1914. It was still being made after that for a while for official medicines but some no doubt ended up in other channels. So, I’m guessing a time range for that part of the song of 1890-1920 ish. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/37 "2024-08-13T00:03:17Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > I always thought that “a couple bottles of Doctor Good” was snake oil, perhaps hair restorer or some other quack medicine. Yes, I think so. Traveling lifestyles makes tending a still problematic. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/38 "2024-08-13T00:37:57Z")
‘Dr. Good’ could be anything. It’s not likely to be sold simply as alcohol, that was never difficult to find in the US until prohibition. More likely it’s advertised as patent medicine, which is usually neither, and at best would contain some alcohol, and maybe an opiate. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/39 "2024-08-13T14:03:08Z")
I think the Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves just followed along wherever Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show had been. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584/40 "2024-08-13T14:25:48Z")
I feel a new thread coming on. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gypsies-tramps-and-thieves-when-were-you-travelling/1005584.md?page=3)