Vocals: Bessie Smith
Band: Bessie Smith & Her Blue Boys
Songwriting: Metz
Come along, get ready, wear your grand brand-new gown,
For there’s going to be a meeting in this good good old town.
When you know everybody and they all know you,
And you get a rabbit’s foot to keep away them hoodoos.
When you hear that the preachin’ has begin,
Bend down low for to drive away your sin;
When you get religion you’ll wanna shout and sing,
There’ll be a hot time in old town tonight!
My baby, when you hear them bells go ding-a-ling,
All turn around and sweetly you must sing.
When the birds dance too, and the poets will all join in,
There’ll be a hot time in old town tonight!
There’ll be girls for everybody in this good good old town,
There’s Miss Gonzola Davis and Miss Gondoola Brown,
There’s Miss Henrietta Caesar, and she’s all dressed in red;
I just hugged and kissed her, and to me then she said;
“Please, oh please, oh do not let me fall,
You are mine and I love you best of all!
You be my man, I’ll have no man at all,
There’ll be a hot time in old town tonight!”
My baby, when you hear them bells go ding-a-ling,
All join around and sweetly you must sing.
When the birds dance too, and the poets will all join in,
There’ll be a hot time in old town tonight!
Read about Bessie Smith and her bisexuality here.
Note: This song was originally written as a minstrel song in 1896, imitating revival meetings in a Black American dialect. The original lyricist, Joe Hayden, is not cited on the record.
It was very popular with the US military in the later 1890s and early 1900s.