The Lady Is a Tramp
original show tune written and composed by Rodgers and Hart; from the 1937 musical "Babes in Arms"
"The Lady Is a Tramp" is a show tune and pop standard from the 1937 Rodgers and Hart musical Babes in Arms, in which it was introduced by former child star Mitzi Green. The song's use of the pejorative "tramp" doesn't literally mean the lady is a prostitute, but instead sarcastically spoofs New York high society and its strict etiquette (the first line of the verse is "I get too hungry for dinner at eight...") and phony social pretensions.
Recordings
Early recordings from 1937 include one by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra (featuring Edythe Wright on vocals), Midge Williams and Her Jazz Jesters, Sophie Tucker, and Bernie Cummins on the Vocalion records label (#3714).
The song appears in the film version of Babes in Arms (1939) as an instrumental version only.
Lena Horne recorded the song with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio Orchestra on March 30, 1948. Her performance appeared in the film Words and Music, a fictionalized biography of the partnership of Rodgers and Hart.
The song was also used in the film version of Pal Joey (1957) starring Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth. Joey Evans (Sinatra) sings the song to Vera Simpson (Hayworth) as he tries to entice the wealthy widow Simpson into financing Evans's dream of owning his own night club.
It was recorded by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Buddy Greco (whose version updates the lyrics to include several 1950s pop-culture references), Bing Crosby (for his radio shows) and Pat Suzuki in the 1950s, and Shirley Bassey in the 1960s, becoming a signature song for Sinatra. He sang the song with new lyrics as "The Gentleman Is a Champ" at tribute events for Spiro Agnew and Orson Welles, also recording a new version under the pseudonym Frankie Alvert titled "Maureen Is a Champ" for Ringo Starr's wife Maureen Starkey; never commercially released.
The public source identifies “The Lady Is a Tramp” as original show tune written and composed by Rodgers and Hart; from the 1937 musical "Babes in Arms". This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lady, Tramp and original.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q861675. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 1939, 1948 and 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Lady Is a Tramp” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.