Mrs. Sally Adams

Album: Call Me Madam (1950)
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Songfacts®:

  • There are many songs about girls and women named Sally; if this is one of the less inspiring of the genre it is because it is a purely functional one. The first number from the musical Call Me Madam, like the rest of the songs in the show it was written by Irving Berlin.

    In the 1953 film version, this brief number is performed by three women - secretaries or some such - who sing down their telephones:

    "Mrs. Sally Adams
    Requests the pleasure of your company"
  • The song includes a tiny snatch of "God Bless America." When Berlin refers to "Mrs. Sally Adams, queen of all the madams" there is no innuendo or smuttiness implied, Mrs. Adams - played in the film by Ethel Merman - is a wealthy widow, and a person of some importance in political circles, hence the invitation to one of her parties. The song is also reprised at the end of the second act. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2

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