For Mother’s Day: 10 Tin Pan Alley Songs About Mothers

Happy Mother’s Day — for those who celebrate. We’ve done a couple of posts here in the past in observance of the holiday, one on some famous vaudeville stage mothers, and another even more sarcastic one on Dee Dee Blanchard true crime bio-pics. Today I thought we’d do a brief listicle on sentimental vaudeville songs about mothers. There was a a real craze for it for a couple of decades, which then lingered for several decades more by way of nostalgia. We present them in no particular order, other than the order in which I thought of them. Break out your handkerchiefs!

“My Mammy” (1918)

Composed by Walter Donaldson, Joe Young, and Sam M. Lewis, believe it or not this one was first popularized in vaudeville by William Frawley! But then Al Jolson sang it in the 1921 Broadway show Sinbad, and it became his signature song. You can hear him perform it the movies The Jazz Singer(1927), The Singing Fool (1928) and Rose of Washington Square(1939) and The Jolson Story (1946). Eddie Cantor also covered it. Jerry Lewis, who did his own tv version of The Jazz Singer, had it in his repertoire too. Today it is widely regarded as problematically racist, though a century ago, the feeling was quite the opposite. There are about a thousand other “Mammy” songs, but we thought we’d keep the list sane.

“My Yiddische Momme” (1925)

Written by the team of Jack Yellen and Lew Pollack, this vaudeville show stopper was first recorded by Willie Howard, but later became much more associated with Belle Baker and Sophie Tucker. As they say, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

“Mother Machree” (1910)

Penned by Rida Johnson Young, Ernest Ball, and Chauncey Olcott for the show Barry of Ballymoore, it was thereafter associated with Olcott. The song was adapted into a 1928 silent film by John Ford, presaging the Irish themes of later films like The Informer (1935) and The Quiet Man (1952).

“M-O-T-H-E-R” (1915)

Written by Howard Johnson and Theodore Morse, this is the one that begins “M is for the million things she gave to me…” It’s a song that definitely spawned a million greeting cards and embroidered pillows. As the sheet music advertises, Eva Tanguay scored a hit with it.

“I Want a Girl (Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad” (1911)

This Oedipal gem by Harry Von Tilzer and William Dillon was favored by quartets in its day.

“Don’t Forget Your Mother” (1899)

Well, if we haven’t forgotten our mothers, we’ve definitely forgotten this song, although its early provenance indicates that in a way its memory was carried along by the many songs that followed. It was written by the team of Andrew B. Sterling and Max Dreyfus.

“Cheer Up Mother” (1918)

As the cover art illustrates this one was a World War One number, from the point of view of a departing solider. It was written by Robert A. King under his pen name “Mary Earl”.

“The Little Grey Mother Who Waits All Alone” (1915)

By Bernard Grossman and Harry De Costa. The elderly model for the sheet music Mary Maurice, was a star of the stage and silent movies.

“Never Forget Your Dear Old Mother” (1912)

By May Parker Jones.

“That Wonderful Mother of Mine” (1918)

By Clyde Hager and Walter Goodwin. The cover art model Jane Jennings was, like Mary Maurice mentioned above, a star of the stage and silent screen.

For more on vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.