--- description: And if it be a daughter, just bounce her on your knee,And if it be a son, send the blighter out to sea,With bell-bottom trousers and a coat of navy blue,And let him fool the Navy the way that I fooled... title: Music: Those Bell Bottoms image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Music: Those Bell Bottoms by [TIME](/author/time/) Jun 25, 1945 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Jun 25, 1945 4:00 AM CUT And if it be a daughter, just bounce her on your knee, And if it be a son, send the blighter out to sea, With bell-bottom trousers and a coat of navy blue, And let him fool the Navy the way that I fooled you. This salty chantey of a too-trusting maid and her love-’em-& -leave-’em sailor was a favorite barroom ballad of World War I. Wherever servicemen gathered, it was sung with gusto—provided no ladies were present. Last week Bell Bottom Trousers, revived as a song hit of World War II, placed first in U.S. sheet-music sales and fourth in radio performances. But the lyrics had been thoroughly scrubbed up. Veteran fathers, momentarily alarmed by the melody the bobby-soxers were singing, were quickly reassured. Songwriter Moe Jaffe’s modernized maid, as coolly respectable as a Junior League Nurses’ Aide, has the situation well in hand; her sailor is as wholesome as an Eagle Scout. Music: Those Bell Bottoms ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6599960/music-those-bell-bottoms/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6599960/music-those-bell-bottoms/"},"headline":"Music: Those Bell Bottoms","datePublished":"1945-06-25T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-25T03:25:50.935Z","description":"And if it be a daughter, just bounce her on your knee,And if it be a son, send the blighter out to sea,With bell-bottom trousers and a coat of navy blue,And let him fool the Navy the way that I fooled...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6599960/music-those-bell-bottoms/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6599960/music-those-bell-bottoms/","name":"Music: Those Bell Bottoms"}}]}] ```