“I’m My Own Grandpaw”

Our dear friend Nancy Stokes spotted this oddball entry, which we acquired mainly so we could tell you about it. Possibly the cover art tipped the balance: the subtle silhouettes of high chair and rocking chair, the corny optical illusion portrait of the baby with a particularly robust head of hair — or is this a portrait of the baby’s bearded grandfather?

The song “I’m My Own Grandpaw,” by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe, is the convoluted cornball tale of a guy who in “the strangest case you ever saw” becomes his own grandfather by way of a series of intermarriages. We’re too lazy to try and explain it ourselves, so we’ll let this article from Genealogy Magazine do the heavy lifting: “A young man marries a woman with a daughter, who then marries the man’s father, and the two men have sons by their new wives.”

Apparently the late Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman nearly achieved this feat when, at age 52, he married 18-year-old Mandy Smith, and Wyman’s son subsequently became engaged to Smith’s mother.

At first glance we shrugged off “Grandpaw” as a garden variety novelty song built around a vaguely clever idea, but it turns out the ditty has a pedigree that — by some unconfirmed accounts — could connect to Mark Twain. The story goes that songwriter Dwight Latham read an anecdote by Twain and felt inspired to set the tale to music. Writer and musician Elijah Weld has a lovely post about the song in his Songobiography project, though he points out there’s no clear evidence to connect Twain to the story.

Our particular edition of “I’m My Own Grandpaw” sheet music comes branded as “featured by Guy Lombardo,” but there are other versions available; same up-or-down cover art with that peculiar bearded baby, but “featured by” different singers — Jo Stafford, for instance, and most notably, Lonzo and Oscar, the duo who first popularized the song. It’s an example of how music sheets were sometimes printed and sold with images of different performers.

I suppose if you were an “I’m My Own Grandpaw” completist, then you might seek out every variation of this vintage sheet music. (Do you think there is such a person as an “I’m My Own Grandpaw” completist?)

Over the years the song has been covered by a wide range of performers, from Willie Nelson to The Clooney Sisters to Phil Harris.

In researching this post, we were delighted to learn that no less than “The Muppet Show” saw fit to enlist a spirited band of Muppet Whatnots — The Gogolala Jubilee Jugband — to stir up a version of the song in a bit that originally aired only in the U.K. Could you get any cooler than The Muppet Show? (Side note: today we also learned that in the U.K., episodes of “The Muppet Show” lasted two minutes longer than those that aired in the U.S., each padded with a scene in what became known as “the UK spot.”)

Avid readers of this blog may remember our account of that magical, mysterious, immortal moment when we learned that there was a glorious and glittering glass Christmas ornament based upon the California Bear illustration for “I Love You, California.” What if there were other Christmas tree ornaments inspired by vintage sheet music art? We do declare, if we ever encountered a Christmas ornament of that bearded baby… shudder! (Although sometimes an old Santa ornament can begin to fall apart in a way that could end up resembling Baby Grandpa; like when its red felt Santa hat has fallen off.)

Anyway, please don’t make a Christmas ornament version of this baby who is his own grandpaw. Or, if you do, you needn’t share the news with us.

Where to find it:
"I'm My Own Grandpaw"
by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe

VINTAGE SHEET MUSIC: on Amazon, on eBay, on AbeBooks
Publisher: General Music Publishing Company (1947)
Status (2024): Out of Print

Digital Download: "I'm My Own Grandpaw" sheet music digital download available for purchase at musicnotes.com.