"After the Ball" is a popular song with music and lyrics by Charles K. Harris. Created in 1891, the song is a classic waltz in 3/4 time. In the song, an uncle tells his niece why he has never married. He saw his sweetheart kissing another man at a ball, and he refused to listen to her explanation. Many years later, after the woman had died, he discovered that the man was her brother.
"After the Ball" became the most successful song of its era, which at that time was gauged by the sales of sheet music. In 1892, it sold over two million copies of sheet music. Its total sheet music sales exceed five million copies, making it the best seller in Tin Pan Alley's history. It exemplifies the sentimental ballads published before 1920, whose topics were frequently babies, separation, and death.
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History
The song was originally written for an amateur minstrel show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was not an immediate success, but Harris published it himself and arranged for it to be interpolated into the touring musical production of A Trip to Chinatown, in which it was sung by J. Aldrich Libbey. Its popularity grew when it was performed regularly by John Philip Sousa and his band at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. In England, it was promoted by George Lashwood. Successful recordings in 1893 were by George J. Gaskin and by John Yorke AtLee.
The song was later famously used in the musical Show Boat to exemplify the 1890s style of music. There it was performed by Norma Terris. In the 1936 film version of the musical, it was performed by Irene Dunne, and in the 1951 film version, by Kathryn Grayson. Only the first verse and chorus were sung in Show Boat.
It was also sung by Alice Faye in the 1940 biographical musical film, Lillian Russell. The song is also heard in the 1936 movie, San Francisco. In the HBO series Carnivàle, the second episode of the first season is titled "After the Ball is Over", and a fragment is sung at the end of the episode. In the last scene of an episode of Season 10 of Murdoch Mysteries, Dr. Julia Ogden plays the song on a gramophone as she removes for examination the brain of a serial killer on the autopsy table.
It was sung by in Driving Miss Daisy by Jessica Tandy.
Parody
The popularity of the song made it a natural for contemporary parody. A common version was:
Alternative parody verse 2 of above:
Alternative parody verse:
Alternative parody verse:
Alternative parody verse:
Selected modern recordings and arrangements
Kathryn Grayson 1951
Guy Lombardo And His Royal Canadians, 1950
Lawrence Welk And His Orchestra, 1957
Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album Join Bing and Sing Along , (1959)
Bob Kames, 1959
Draaiorgel "De Pruik", 1960
Nat King Cole on Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer, 1963
The Kingsway Strings
Julie London - for her album Swing Me an Old Song (1959)
Orkest Frans Kerkhof 1960
Bob Crewe arranged Crewe 1967, covered by Danny Rivers South Africa, 1967
The Merrymen, from their album "Colour It Calypso", 1971
Joan Morris and William Bolcom on their debut album of the same title, 1974
Anita Harris 1978
Frances Black with the band Arcady from Ireland, credited as "trad.", 1990
Dave Davies (of English band The Kinks) on the various artists album, The Beautiful Old, 2013