The original lyrics and music of the song entered the public domain in the United States in 2024.[2]
Lyrics
Climb up on my knee, Sonny Boy Though you're only three, Sonny Boy You've no way of knowing There's no way of showing What you mean to me, Sonny Boy.
When there are grey skies, I don't mind the grey skies. You make them blue, Sonny Boy. Friends may forsake me. Let them all forsake me. I still have you, Sonny Boy.
You're sent from heaven And I know your worth. You made a heaven For me here on earth.
When I'm old and grey, dear Promise you won't stray, dear For I love you so, Sonny Boy.
When there are grey skies, I don't mind grey skies. You make them blue, Sonny Boy. Friends may forsake me. Let them all forsake me. I still have you, Sonny Boy.
You're sent from heaven And I know your worth. You've made a heaven For me here on earth.
And the angels grew lonely Took you because they were lonely I'm lonely too, Sonny Boy.[3]
In 1929, the song was performed by Bosko in the pilot film Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid, an early attempt at creating an animated cartoon with spoken dialogue.
The song is used as a major plot point in the short story Jeeves and the Song of Songs by P. G. Wodehouse (originally published 1929), included in the collection Very Good, Jeeves (1930). The story was dramatised as the second episode of season 1 of the British TV series Jeeves and Wooster, "Tuppy and the Terrier", where is it performed by Hugh Laurie as the character Bertie Wooster and then by Constance Novis as the character Cora Bellinger.
Ken Dodd performed the song as part of his ventriloquist's act with his puppet Dicky Mint during his performance on the LWT series An Audience With...
Singer Eddie Fisher was always called "Sonny Boy" by his family because of the popularity of this song, which was recorded the same year as Fisher's birth. In his autobiography, Fisher wrote that even after he was married to Elizabeth Taylor in 1959, earning $40,000 a week performing in Las Vegas, spending time with Frank Sinatra and Rocky Marciano, and had songs at the top of the charts, his family still called him "Sonny Boy".[4]
The song was performed by one of the entrants at Talent Trek on Phoenix Nights.
According to 1986 British TV documentary "The Real Al Jolson Story," "Sonny Boy" was written in a single sitting in a hotel room in Atlantic City as a joke. In the 1956 DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson biopic "The Best Things in Life Are Free", the songwriting trio are tired of being pestered by Al Jolson. They decide to write a song so unabashedly maudlin that even Jolson would hate it, and leave them alone. True to style, Jolson did not hate the overt sentimentality of the song and it became one of the biggest popular hits of the early 20th century.
Various renditions of the song are used as a leitmotif in the 1990 psychological horror film Jacob's Ladder, indicating protagonist Jacob's love for his late son Gabe. The film notably omits the last verse, which relates the narrator's loss in kind, perhaps as an artistic choice.
The song title is the title of a Dutch book and movie about a Surinamese/Dutch family and their lives leading up to and in the second World War. The little boy's nickname is Sonny Boy after this song, which was popular when he was born.
The song was referenced by the British band Black Midi in their song "John L" with the lyric "Three encores of 'Oh Sonny Boy' [sic] backed only by accordion". The reference is a nod to the blackfaceminstrelsy performed by Jolson, as the song's protagonist is a fascistic cult leader and espoused racist.
References
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