The Whiffenpoof Song
Rudy Vallée Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

To the tables down at Mory's
To the place where Louie dwells
To the dear old Temple bar we love so well
Sing the Whiffenpoofs assembled with their glasses raised on high
And the magic of their singing casts it's spell

Yes, the magic of their singing of the songs we love so well
"Shall I Wasting" and "Mavourneen" and the rest

We will serenade our Louie while life and voice shall last
Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest

We're poor little lambs who have lost our way
Baa, baa, baa
We're little black sheep who have gone astray
Baa, baa, baa

Gentleman songsters off on a spree
Doomed from here to eternity

Lord have mercy on such as we
Baa, baa, baa

Overall Meaning

The Whiffenpoof Song by Rudy Vallee is a drinking song that celebrates the camaraderie and traditions of a college social club. The song is a tribute to the tables, the bars, and the people that the Whiffenpoofs, a fictional group of gentlemen songsters, call home. The Whiffenpoofs sing about the magic of their singing and the songs they love so much, including "Shall I Wasting" and "Mavourneen," and how they will serenade their beloved Louie while they still have life and voice. But the song also acknowledges the impermanence of life and how they, as poor little lambs who have lost their way, are little black sheep who have gone astray.

The song's lyrics invite us to imagine a gathering of male voices in a bar, glasses raised, proceeding to sing in harmony. The song speaks poignantly of a shared experience and the passage of time, and of the human condition. It is a tender tribute to the fleeting beauty of youth, to college days, and to lifelong relationships. But it also acknowledges the inevitability of change and the transience of all things.

Line by Line Meaning

To the tables down at Mory's
We're headed to Mory's where we can sit, eat, and drink comfortably

To the place where Louie dwells
We're going to where Louie lives, perhaps to pay homage to him

To the dear old Temple bar we love so well
We're headed to Temple Bar, a place we love

Sing the Whiffenpoofs assembled with their glasses raised on high
We'll lift our glasses high and start to sing together as the Whiffenpoofs group

And the magic of their singing casts it's spell
The beauty of our collective singing has a spell-binding effect

Yes, the magic of their singing of the songs we love so well
Yes, our singing is magical because we sing the songs that we deeply love

"Shall I Wasting" and "Mavourneen" and the rest
We'll sing popular songs of our time such as "Shall I Wasting" and "Mavourneen", among others

We will serenade our Louie while life and voice shall last
We'll perform a song dedicated to Louie while we still have breath and energy

Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest
But when we die, we'll be remembered no more than anybody else

We're poor little lambs who have lost our way
We're like little sheep who have lost our way in life

Baa, baa, baa
Baa, baa, baa (repetition of the previous line)

We're little black sheep who have gone astray
We're even like black sheep of the family who have wandered far from the right path

Gentleman songsters off on a spree
We're gentlemen who love to sing and party

Doomed from here to eternity
We're destined to sing and party till the end of our lives

Lord have mercy on such as we
God, have mercy on our sinful souls

Baa, baa, baa
Baa, baa, baa (repetition of the previous line)

Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: TOD GALLOWAY, TOD B GALLOWAY, MOSS HART, MEADE MINNIGERODE, GEORGE S POMEROY, RUDY VALLEE

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

To comment on or correct specific content, highlight it

TRACKS

Genre not found

Artist not found

Album not found

Search results not found

Song not found

Comments from YouTube:

@davidhapka5410

3y↑35

A gentler time. In stark contrast to the ugliness of today 🥺

@eightinches6094

3y↑3

Mankind has changed.

@davidhapka5410

@Frank Lopez Boo hoo...

@drfelixgraham

2y↑6

Oh yes, the time of lynchings. A much more beautiful and gentle time.

@davidhapka5410

2y↑7

@@drfelixgraham Virtue signal somewhere else, Doc.

@elainesmith7512

2y↑3

@@davidhapka5410 "Doc" is telling the truth.

8 More Replies...

@radicalross7700

41w↑3

"We'll pass and be forgotten with the rest". Rudy Vallee has passed, but he hasn't been forgotten.

@bradstewart7007

1y↑3

15 years between this an introducing The Rolling Stones. Feels like a century apart.

@irafutterman5557

2y↑6

I'm sure many cool cats would reject this as so old fashioned and stodgy but this is masterclass sophistication, class,and talent a great treasure to be able to enjoy with our technology.

@joycejean-baptiste4355

2y↑3

Ed Sullivan looks so young here. I watched his show on T. V. when I was a kid.

@scifiradioguy

2y↑3

So great for you to have all of this material digitized and presented for generations to come.

@johnhourigan6049

3y↑11

I find these late 1940s clips of Ed’s shows fascinating.

@jones616

2y↑3

Wow, I didn't know Ed Sullivan was around for Rudy Vallee...I saw the Beatles "premiere " on Ed's show, was so exciting...I was just getting into adolescence, life was so full of promise .

@trevorpark7768

3y↑33

I catch some of these old shows and it is a different world. The audiences are so civilized and classy. Everyone puts on their best. They cared how they looked in public. They all had manners. Do not know what happened to Americans.

@chipmartin1223

2y↑5

Yes indeed. When I was young my grandfather would play old 78’s of Rudy Vallee for me while showing me how to wire up old telephones. My grandfather was born in the 1800’s. We would leave the house to walk Into down town Memphis. He always wore a nice hat and a suit with tie. They all went out carry about their appearance and were very kind to one another. I miss those days. It was a totally different world then. Yes it was

@reneehenderson5787

44w↑1

Perhaps ‘Americans’ have reverted to their true nature. Maybe the polite audiences you recall are merely an illusion. The book “Lies My Teacher Told Me” reveals the true American that you so fondly remember.

@charlestait5303

36w↑1

Bad parenting!

@josephnatoli3935

21w

1:01 1:06. There are no more civilized Americans as of late.
BORDERS language and culture, without these 3 we will loose our beautiful AMERICA.
We are not a democracy...
We are a republic.🙏❤🙏👍🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

@Itchybooty

20w

Not just America, it’s all over the world. Also only the people with money dressed this way, the rest of the working class people May have tried to dress as nice and cleans as possible but only for special situations. 😂

1 More Replies...

@juanlespin

3y↑12

Well my impression of Rudy Vallee just went up. Lovely introduction and sweet singing, especially the coda. Normally singers love holding long high notes but he pauses on the low ones. Very effective.

@jimdrake3436

His ability to sustain such a long breath stemmed from his mastery of the clarinet and saxophone—actually, “saxophones” because he played the soprano, alto, C-melody, tenor, and bass saxophones with the Yale Collegians.

@steveperry1344

3y↑4

i've been a fan of rudy vallee ever since i was a kid, i used to sing along with my mother to his records, great to hear and see him in this film clip.

@jimdrake3436

2y↑8

He slipped in the first part of the “bridge” of the song by singing “Damned from here to eternity,” when “damned” was a curse word banned from television—but this was “live” and in his second rendering of that line he sang the accepted version, “Doomed from here to eternity.”

@josephnatoli3935

22w

I loved this crooner!❤❤

@domenicleone8051

36w

Beautiful voice

@williamschlenger1518

14w

My mom used to sing this to me when I was very young.

@deborahkelly1489

1y↑1

This song is beautiful it always makes me emotional.

@TomElvisSmith

3y↑17

Now this is a great Rudy Vallee clip! I liked his explanation of the origin of the song too. I'm going to copy what I said on the previous Vallee post, since it would be better suited here. Rudy Vallee, along with Gene Austin, and eventually Bing Crosby and Russ Columbo, pioneered the crooning singing style which made the ladies swoon back in the 1920's and early '30's. Some of his big hits were "I'm Just a Vagabond Lover", "Betty Co-Ed", "Stein Song" and many, many others. He later experienced a revival in his career in the 1960's when he starred in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". Rudy appeared on quite a few early Sullivan shows. Other songs sung by Rudy on this episode were "Another Girl Like You" (possibly "If I Had a Girl Like You"), "Ragtime Gal" "Bamboo Tree" and "Tell Me Pretty Maiden".

@jimdrake3436

2y↑1

Indeed he sang “If I Had a Girl Like You,” which he had featured on his “Fleischmann Hour” in the early-1930s. He sang “Under the Bamboo Tree” and noted that the novelty song was a favorite of none other than Enrico Caruso.

@reneleclerc6119

3y↑2

I wonder if Steve Allen had as much fun with the lyrics of this song as he had with rock songs.

@catguy00

2y↑1

I wish I sounded like this

@rjstreeter1961

3y↑16

My mother turned 100 recently, and mentioned that she'd been thinking about Rudy Vallée singing The Whiffenpoof Song - I think she will love this version!
RJ Streeter 7-2-2021

@Folkie44

1y↑1

Had to listen to this song after reading Dylan's Philosophy of Modern Song, although his remarks are based on the Bing Crosby version.

@dougmilesmedia

3y↑8

"Lord Marmaduke Phogg" from "Batman"

@michaelpohas2608

3y↑1

In Londinium!

@finallybrainunderstood479

3y↑5

@4:30 as weeeeeeeeee...... Yes🙏baaa👌

@jimdrake3436

It takes a professional clarinet and saxophone player, which he was, to be able to sing such a long phrase as his “such … as we-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee” on descending notes as he does “live” here as well as on his 1930s recording of “The Whiffenpoof Song.”

@stevefaure415

2y↑3

You can tell Ed and Rudy were friends.

@pqdlindasgaiolascarlinhosd5758

3y↑1

👏👏👏👏👏👏

@chuckschafer942

49w

IN 1949 IT WAS "TOAST OF THE TOWN"

@leobrussel9471

35w

What a marvelous voice, both singing and speaking. His introductory remarks were astonishingly articulate. Whether rehearsed or off-the-cuff, I have rarely, if ever, heard the like from a variety show guest.
There are a lot of remarks here and on other videos from this era about how classy and dignified we were as a country back then, and not so much now. That is true up to a point. There were also terrible things in our national character at the time, racism being the most pernicious.
When we who support President Trump now hear "Make America Great Again", we nearly all think of this side of America, the side of decency, fairness and dignity. Not the negative side. Not the racism. We were surely not great in those areas and need never return to them. But the positive side? We definitely will be greater with a return to that.

@pdmacguire

46w

That was back when Yale was still a respected center of learning.

@markhyde7783

I have alot of his 45s promo no scratches I don't know if I should keep them or ditch them.

@manouka

he looks a lot like a young Edward Herrmann (who plays the grandfather in gilmore girls) and as soon as I thought that he said he's going to Hartford which is where that character lives in the show! so weird

@davidlogansr8007

2y↑1

I still like Rudy Valee Eve my though he wasn’t very nice I’ve read.

@therudyvalleearchives6831

2y↑1

Rudy was a complicated person. From speaking with several folks who knew him and reading his autobiographies, he was very aware of the fact that he was opinionated, outspoken and not popular with many of the “in” crowd of Hollywood. He was not afraid to correct anyones grammar, or tell them what he really thought. However, he also was incredibly self aware, humble (almost to a point of self deprecation) and knew his strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately I think he was just like all of us, full of strengths and weaknesses, shades of gray.

@Nonduality

3y↑2

Now let's see Elvis sing it.

@eightinches6094

3y↑2

Or the Beatles!

@miyoshiumeki

46w

There is a blandness about Rudy that is undeniable, maybe because he never appeared to have much of a vocal range and his facial expression when singing lacked personality. Somehow that was made humorous in the movie The Palm Beach Story and later to the exaggerated character in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I will never forget when as an old gentleman he appeared on a documentary about sexual mores of the 20th century and said rather proudly that in his life he slept with more than 200 woman and girls. I thought it was most interesting that he somehow kept score :)

@user-uh5wp4bh8m

Idle rich at Yale and Harvard......

@iluvhou

Whoo. Thank goodness for this, I was spooked and creeped out from watching earlier performances of Mr. Valle's. I was curious and decided to look him up and was fascinated that he was popular or successful at all. Stinkers. But I do not know what other choices were out there during his early career, they must've been horrendous. Maybe he was different? His voice definitely improved with age. Very nice! He just looked & sounded scary when he was young.