A popular song from 1919.
Words and music by Howard Johnson, Murray Roth, and Cliff Hess.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- My father was a widower
And we lived all alone
With no one in our home
That we could call our own
But sad to state I grew to hate
That weary, dreary life
Made up my mind I’d go and find
A loving, little wife
I met a little dear
And courted her a year
And oh! what pretty things
I used to whisper in her ear
Chorus
I used to call her Baby
She seemed like a baby to me
When she said that we should wed
You bet I was glad
Then I took her home
And introduced her to Dad
That’s when I lost my Baby
For Dad had coin you see
She never even stopped to say “Ta Ta”
Next day she turned around and married Pa
And just to think I used to call her Baby
And now she’s a mother to me
- To think that after all these years
So free from care and strife
I’d change my plan of life
And try to grab a wife
I thought that she’d be company
But now I plainly see
That she is better company
For Daddy than for me
The way she made me feel
It seems it can’t be real
But just the same I realize
I got an awful deal
Chorus
I used to call her Baby
But since she’s my mother, oh see
Any time she comes along
And sits on my knee
She don’t seem to have
The same attraction for me
To think she was my Baby
It’s got me up a tree
Now when my evening pray’rs
Have all been said
She always tucks me in my little bed
And just to think I used to call her Baby
And now she’s a mother to me
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: