The verse to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"

Cafe Society
1

I perform this song in my act, with the gimmick that I start it with the little known first verse, so that when the chorus (the part everyone knows) comes up, people are surprised to learn that there’s more to the song.

Problem is, I haven’t been able to find a complete recording, so I don’t know all the melody of the verse (I remember most of it from memory from the Ken Burns documentary Baseball) and I just sort of make up the melody of the last two or three lines.

Could someone sketch me out the melody of the last three lines of the verse? Any shorthand notation you know would be fine.

I presume since the song was written in 1908, this won’t get our knees broken by ASCAP (if I’m wrong, please refrain). Thanks,

2

It’s on the <i>Baseball</i> CD soundtrack, if that’s any help to you.

3

Since it is in the public domain, why not look at the music?

4

Thanks, mobo, that will do me fine.

5

Good lord. It’s bad enough to hear that song when you’re AT a ballgame (and why the hell do we sing it when we’re ALREADY THERE?!!?) but you subject people to extra verses out of nowhere for no apparent reason? ::shudder::

6

voguevixen, I’m sorry you feel that way. I guess you’re just too logical for me and my drunken fans. :slight_smile:

7

voguevixen, you could always spice it up at the ballpark by singing the song one-syllable-off or two-syllables-off, like this:

“Out … TO the ball game, take me,
Out … TO the crowd, buy me!
Some peanuts and Cracker Jack … I don’t,
Care if I ever get back, for let’s,
Root root root … FOR the home team, if they,
Don’t win it’s a shame, for it’s,
One two three … strikes … you’re out at the old ball game”

… and then be silent for the last two notes, or “wrap around” to the beginning of the song and close with “Taaake meeeeeeee!”

8

(I first heard 'em do that in the New Laugh-In in the early 1980s, and haven’t been able to get it out of my head since.)

9

tracer: I never saw that episode of the New laugh-In, but I’ve been singing it like this for as long as I can remember:

Me out to the ball game, take
Me out to the park, buy
Me some peanuts and crackerjacks, I
Don’t care if I never come back, for
It’s root , root , root for the home team, if
They don’t win it’s a shame, for
It’s one, two, three strikes your out at
The old ball game, take!

And yes, I get some might funny looks. Most people don’t realize what I’m doing – they just think I’m messing up the song…

Barry

10

You can also hear it on um…a Frank Sinatra movie…“Take Me Out To the Ball Game” I presume. Frankie sings the first verse of the 1927 version…but since they both scan the same way…