"Buffalo Gals" is a

traditional A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

American song, written and published as "Lubly Fan" in 1844 by the blackface minstrel

John Hodges John Robart Hodges (11 August 1855 – 17 January 1933) was an Australian cricketer who played in the first two Test matches in 1877. Cricket career Hodges was born in Knightsbridge, London, on 11 August 1855 and is believed to have died on ...

, who performed as "Cool White". The song was widely popular throughout the United States, where minstrels often altered the lyrics to suit local audiences, performing it as "New York Gals" in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, "Boston Gals" in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, or "Alabama Girls" in

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...

, as in the version recorded by Alan Lomax and

Shirley Collins Shirley Elizabeth Collins MBE (born 5 July 1935) is an English folk singer who was a significant contributor to the English Folk Revival of the 1960s and 1970s. She often performed and recorded with her sister Dolly, whose accompaniment on ...

on a 1959

field recording Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It also applies to sound recordings like electromagnetic fields or vibra ...

trip. The best-known version is named after

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. The chorus is: :Buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight? :Come out tonight, :Come out tonight? :Buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight, :And dance by the light of the moon? The

Western Writers of America Western Writers of America (WWA), founded 1953, promotes literature, both fictional and nonfictional, pertaining to the American West. Although its founders wrote traditional Western fiction, the more than 600 current members also include histori ...

chose it as one of the Top 100 Western Songs of all time.

Origination

The lyrics are a reference to the many "dancing girls" who performed in the bars, concert-hall dives, and brothels of the Buffalo, New York, Canal district, which at that time was the western terminus of the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

and the site where canal and freighter crewmen received their wages.

Adaptations

*The English

singing game A singing game is an activity based on a particular verse or rhyme, usually associated with a set of actions and movements. As a collection, they have been studied by folklorists, ethnologists, and psychologists and are seen as important part of ...

"Pray, Pretty Miss" may have been an inspiration for the lyric, according to Frank Brown in "Collection of North Carolina Folklore". The tune is reminiscent of "Im Grunewald, im Grunewald ist Holzauktion", a music hall song from Germany that was however first published in 1892. *A new set of lyrics to the same tune entitled "Dance with a Dolly (with a Hole in Her Stocking)" became a success in 1944 when it was recorded by a number of artists. Charted versions were by

Russ Morgan Russell Morgan (April 29, 1904 – August 7, 1969) was an American big band leader and arranger during the 1930s and 1940s. He was best known for being the one of the composers of the song "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", with Larry Stock ...

Evelyn Knight Evelyn Dawn Knight (born 5 November 1942) is an English woman known for her involvement in the Abscam sting operation of the 1970s, with her ex-husband Mel Weinberg. A character inspired by her was portrayed on film by Amy Adams in '' American ...

and

Tony Pastor Antonio Pastor (May 28, 1837 – August 26, 1908) was an American impresario, variety performer and theatre owner who became one of the founding forces behind American vaudeville in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. He was sometimes referr ...

. In the decades since, versions in genres ranging from children's choir to disco have been recorded. Notable recordings have included Bing Crosby (for his album ''

Bing Crosby's Treasury - The Songs I Love (1968 version) ''Bing Crosby's Treasury - The Songs I Love'' is an LP set issued in both mono and stereo formats by a mail-order firm, The Longines Symphonette Society, an educational service of the Longines-Wittnauer Watch Company. A similar LP set had been is ...

''),

The Andrews Sisters The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (July 6, 1911 – May 8, 1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (January ...

, Bill Haley & His Comets and Damita Jo. *A 1959 adaptation by

Bobby Darin Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto; May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973) was an American musician and actor. He performed jazz, pop, rock and roll, folk, swing, and country music. He started his career as a songwriter for Connie ...

called "Plain Jane" went to number 38 on the '' Billboard'' chart. *A 1960 hit by Ray Smith, "Rockin' Little Angel" is based on the same melody. *A 1961 album by

The Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

, ''Dance by the Light of the Moon'' includes the title song which borrows part of the melody and lyrics, reworking it into a doo-wop song.

In popular culture

* The line "They danced by the light of the moon" shows up a little more than a quarter century later in Edward Lear's poem, "The Owl and the Pussycat", published in 1870. * In Frank Capra's 1946 film ''

It's a Wonderful Life ''It's a Wonderful Life'' is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet ''The Greatest Gift'', which Philip Van Doren Stern self-published in 1943 and is in turn loos ...

'',

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

and George Bailey sing the song together in the scene where George "lassos" the Moon. *

Ursula Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...

wrote a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

novelette titled after the song's first line, "

Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, originally published in the November 1987 issue of ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'' and collected in '' Buffalo Gals a ...

", in 1987.

References

External links

* , performed by

The Pickard Family ''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...

Alabama Girls
by Emma Hammond

by John Renfro Davis
The sheet music
{{Authority control American folk songs Western music (North America) Burl Ives songs Songs about dancing