There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight

"A Hot Time In The Old Town"
Sheet music cover (1896).
Song

"A Hot Time in the Old Town" is an American ragtime song, composed in 1896 by Theodore August Metz with lyrics by Joe Hayden. Metz was the band leader of the McIntyre and Heath Minstrels.

One history of the song reports "While on tour with the McIntyre and Heath Minstrels, their train arrived at a place called 'Old Town'. From their train window, [Metz] could see a group of children starting a fire, near the tracks. One of the other minstrels remarked that 'there'll be a hot time in the old town tonight'. Metz noted the remark on a scrap of paper, intending to write a march with that motif. He did indeed write the march the very next day. It was then used by the McIntyre and Heath Minstrels in their Street parades."

The dialect and narrative of the song imitate an African-American revival meeting.

Other uses

The song was a favorite of the American military around the start of the 20th century, particularly during the Spanish–American War and the Boxer Rebellion. The tune became popular in the military after it was used as a theme by Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders.

The song has also been tradition at the University of Wisconsin since the late 1890s when a Wisconsin-flavored arrangement was made. The University of Wisconsin Marching Band plays this arrangement regularly at sporting events, including the beginning of each period in Hockey and Basketball, and following touchdowns at football games.

Prior to the adoption of "The Victors" as the University of Michigan's official fight song, it was considered to be Michigan's school song.

The War Hymn of Texas A&M University currently uses the chorus of this song as its finale, but it is sung with different lyrics.

Also, the Eastern Illinois University marching band plays the song in conjunction with their fight song at athletic events.

The song is now frequently sung by fans of the Chicago Fire Soccer Club of Major League Soccer during matches, with lyrics reflecting the legend of Catherine O'Leary's cow's, alleged role in the team's namesake, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The Great Fire coincidentally burned much of the city's Old Town neighborhood, where the Chicago Fire Soccer Club held their first team practice in 1998 at the Moody Bible Institute.

The song appears as an instrumental at the very end of the New Year's Eve scene in the stage and 1936 film versions of the musical Show Boat. The song is also featured in Citizen Kane, "are we going to declare war on Spain or are we not?".

The Joker sings the title line from this song in a scene where he uses his "joy buzzer" to electrocute the character Antoine Rotelli in the 1989 film Batman.

Catwoman directly refers to the song title as Selina Kyle while asking Bruce Wayne if he plans to attend the tree relighting ceremony in the 1992 film "Batman Returns"

In 1964, the song was played for laughs at a "very" slow tempo by the Hooterville Volunteer Fire Department Band on the American sitcoms Petticoat Junction and Green Acres.

In 1994, the melody was used for "The Chewing Song" in the film "The Road to Wellville" by Columbia Pictures.

During the 1968 U.S. Presidential campaign; Richard Nixon's campaign saw him use part of the song (set to images of celebratory clips from the 1968 Democratic National Convention) mixed with more dissonant sounds accompanying pictures of poverty-stricken areas; soldiers wounded in Vietnam and the recent unrest; including the riots at that same Convention.

Lyrics

Verse 1:

Come along get you ready, wear your bran, bran new gown,

For dere's gwine to be a meeting in that good, good old town,

Where you knowed ev'ry body, and they all knowed you,

And you've got a rabbits foot to keep away the hoodoo;

Where you hear that the preaching does begin,

Bend down low for to drive away your sin

And when you gets religion, you want to shout and sing

There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight!

My baby -

Chorus:

When you hear dem a bells go ding, ling ling,

All join 'round and sweetly you must sing

And when the verse am through, in the chorus all join in,

There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight.

Verse 2:

There'll be girls for ev'ry body in that good, good old town,

For dere's Miss Consola Davis an dere's Miss Gondolia Brown;

And dere's Miss Johanna Beasly she am dressed all in red,

I just hugged her and I kissed her and to me then she said:

Please, oh please, oh, do not let me fall,

You're all mine and I love you best of all,

And you must be my man, or I'll have no man at all,

There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight!

My baby -

Chorus

Bibliography

• Browne, C.A. The Story of Our National Ballads. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company (1919).
• Hayden, Joe (w.); Theo A. Metz (m.). "A Hot Time in the Old Town" (sheet music). New York: Willis Woodward & Co. (1896).

External links

• "A Hot Time in the Old Town". The Charles Templeton Digital Sheet Music Collection. Mississippi State University.
• "Hot Time in the Old Town" , Victor Military Band (Victor 18371, 1917)—Library of Congress Performing Arts Encyclopedia.
• "Hot Time (Cheer, Boys, Cheer!)", University of Wisconsin Marching Band.
• YouTube video of song being performed
• "Batman (1989) Quotes"