Dominic Vautier
updated 1/2015
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In late 1899, Harry Von Tilzer and his friend, Art Lamb, were tossing around the idea of writing a really
stupid tearjerker song, which would be so bad that it would put all the
other tearjerker songs to shame. Lamb
handed Von Tilzer some words he had written and said, “I dare you to
set this to music.” so Harry casually stuck the words in his vest
pocket and forgot about it.
A few days later, Von Tilzer joined some friends for their usual Saturday night barhopping marathon, and ended up in a house of somewhat unfavorable reputation. Since he was not particularly interested in joining in the activities, he reached into his vest pocket and pulled out the words to the satire song. Awkward and board in the midst of merriment, and having time on his hands with nothing particular to do with himself, he made the best of things and did what he did best. Harry sat down at the piano and improvised a melody around the ridiculous words. It wasn’t too much later that he had a pretty good song, and in his strong baritone voice, he began to sing. A pall of silence fell over the house. Young girls, who were sitting close by, became glassy eyed and began to faintly sob. Harry looked up and found himself surrounded by tearful young ladies. What's going on here anyway? He couldn’t believe his own eyes.
Harry had composed the "bird cage" song which featured abandonment, isolation, sorrow, remorse, evil, vengeance and everything else that the new century would eventually discover. What began as a tearjerker joke turned out to be the biggest hit of 1900 and had the distinction of ringing in the new year, decade and century as well.
She’s only a bird in a gilded cage,
A beautiful sight to see.
You may think she is happy and free from care,
She’s not though she seems to be.
It’s sad when you think of her wasted life,
For youth cannot mate with age.
And her beauty was sold for an old man’s gold,
She’s a bird in a gilded cage.