# Why Won't The Tramp Go To Harlem in Lincoln or Ford?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 13, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454 "2008-11-13T01:25:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/1 "2008-11-13T01:25:00Z")
In _The Lady Is a Tramp_ there is a line “she won’t go to Harlem in a Lincoln or Ford”. Is that because those were nice cars and she’d be showing off? Or becuase it mean she took a cab instead? Or did she take a Rambler?
---
### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/2 "2008-11-13T02:01:45Z")
The song is ironical (I guess, have to ask Alanis Morrissette I 'spose 😉 )…
The snooty society crowd diss’s our Lady for not doing the obnoxious things they do, like descending on the poor folks in expensive cars.
Although I’ve never understood the California verse.
---
### Author:  [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/3 "2008-11-13T02:24:50Z")
> [@K364](#):
>
> The song is ironical (I guess, have to ask Alanis Morrissette I 'spose 😉 )…
>
> The snooty society crowd diss’s our Lady for not doing the obnoxious things they do, like descending on the poor folks in expensive cars.
>
> Although I’ve never understood the California verse.
I get the irony, it’s just that Fords don’t sound expensive.
---
### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/4 "2008-11-13T02:41:12Z")
> [@K364](#):
>
> Although I’ve never understood the California verse.
More irony – Sunny California is “cold and it’s damp.”
---
### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/5 "2008-11-13T02:43:08Z")
> [@K364](#):
>
> The snooty society crowd diss’s our Lady for not doing the obnoxious things they do, like descending on the poor folks in expensive cars
Bear in mind that the song is from the '30s, and that the connotation of “Harlem” has changed a lot since then.
The line is really just about not being a scenester – not going out on the town to the Cotton Club – and the end clause is just a convenient rhyme.
---
### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/6 "2008-11-13T02:53:18Z")
Ah, I think I’m on to something… the usual lyrics are an invention of Frank Sinatra (rhyming Fords/Broads). The [original lyrics](http://www.lorenzhart.org/trampsng.htm) don’t have that line.
---
### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/7 "2008-11-13T02:55:06Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> More irony – Sunny California is “cold and it’s damp.”
The irony is in the line “That’s why the Lady is a tramp”. All the other lines describe her true, honest feelings.
Maybe they were thinking of San Francisco?
---
### Author:  [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/8 "2008-11-13T03:52:54Z")
The Frank Sinatra version we listen to at work says “ermines and pearls”…and the whole point of the song is that the other society women look down on her and call her a tramp because she doesn’t go along with their pretensions.
---
### Author:  [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/9 "2008-11-13T04:17:18Z")
> [@kittenblue](#):
>
> The Frank Sinatra version we listen to at work says “ermines and pearls”…and the whole point of the song is that the other society women look down on her and call her a tramp because she doesn’t go along with their pretensions.
It’s on our corporate tape as well. You don’t work at a major mail order catalog company with retail outlets, do you?
---
### Author:  [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/10 "2008-11-13T04:46:14Z")
The “Sinatra Version” has the first verse going to Harlem in “ermine and pearls” and then in the last verse “in Lincolns or Fords”.
[Link](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/frank+sinatra/lady+is+a+tramp_20056210.html)
---
### Author:  [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/11 "2008-11-13T08:40:03Z")
> [@K364](#):
>
> The irony is in the line “That’s why the Lady is a tramp”. All the other lines describe her true, honest feelings.
I don’t think there’s any irony there either – at least as originally written. If I remember rightly, the character who sings the song in _Babes In Arms_ is actually a literal tramp – a hobo.
---
### Author:  [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2008, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wont-the-tramp-go-to-harlem-in-lincoln-or-ford/472454/12 "2008-11-13T15:56:13Z")
The version I have heard, by Ella Fitzgerald, begins with this verse:
> [@](#):
>
> I’ve wined and dined on Mulligan Stew, and never wished for Turkey
> As I hitched and hiked and grifted too, from Maine to Albuquerque
> Alas, I missed the Beaux Arts Ball, and what is twice as sad
> I was never at a party where they honored Noel Ca-ad (Coward)
> But social circles spin too fast for me
> My “hobohemia” is the place to be
So I always thought it was about someone who becomes a tramp because they don’t like living in high society. This version also has several verses that are not in the Sinatra version. [Here](http://www.lyrics007.com/Ella%20Fitzgerald%20Lyrics/Lady%20is%20a%20Tramp%20Lyrics.html) are the lyrics.