`Eadie Was a Lady'

My mother was born Edith Hayes, a neither unusual nor common name for an Irish-American female in 1920. On the radio this week my brother heard a song, “Eadie Was a Lady,” performed by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra. The first verse goes like this:

“Maud and Mabel, seated at a table
Talking over bygone days
Mabel sporty, fat and over forty
Said, `Remember Edith Hayes.’”

The song, from the Broadway musical Take a Chance, is credited to Richard Whiting, Nacio Herb Brown and Buddy De Sylva. It opened at the Apollo Theater on Nov. 26, 1932, and after 243 performances closed July 1, 1933. It’s jarring to discover one’s mother’s name in a song that premiered when she was 12 years old. Perhaps I should posthumously reexamine my origins, especially in light of the second verse:

“Eadie was a sucker for a bottle and glass
But in spite of everything that gal had class
Then one winter, she wed a Chinese printer
Struck her with refined like ways.”

Go here for Calloway’s version, and here for Lillian Roth’s. The latter is from the 1933 film of Take a Chance.