HPR Songspiel: I Ain’t got nobody, gigolo

Produced by James Osborne
HPR Contributor

The songs “Ain’t got nobody” and “Just a gigolo” originally came from two different songs. Ironically, the first known edition of the song was sung by a white woman named Marion Harris, in 1916, famous for daring to sing “negro music,” jazz and blues.

Kung Fu Jimmy explains that “Ann Margaret’s offering transformed this expression of a black man’s loneliness into what could now be mistaken for some white lady’s day on a cruise ship.”

“I’m figuring that over 2,000 artists between the years 1916 when it was written and 1956, professed musically that they “Ain’t got nobody,” by way of recording.”

What readers need to know is that around the time of 1927-28, the song “Schöner Gigolo”, was written in Austria, by Leonello Casucci and Julius Brammer. The song, very popular in Europe, was adapted by songwriter, Irving Caesar, for the English speaking world. He changed the title to “Just a gigolo.” This tune, and the “Ain’t got nobody” songs were merged into one - - which we so readily recognize today.

In 1986, David Lee Roth recorded what is arguably the best known version of these songs, and certainly the most successful. Although the song garnered millions for Roth, he became largely irrelevant musically shortly after the songs release on Roth’s solo album “Crazy From the Heat;” making the lyrics “...life goes on without me” eerily prophetic.

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