"Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves" is the first single released
by Cher for the album of the same name, her seventh solo album.
It was her first chart-topper as a solo artist in the United
States.
"Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves" was the first single from
Cher's 1971 self-titled album
Cher. The album was subsequently renamed and re-released
as
Gypsys, Tramps & Thievesafter the success of the
single. The song was written by songwriter Bob Stone as a
story-song called "Gypsies Tramps and White Trash". Producer
Snuff Garrett advised that the title be changed and Stone then
changed it to "Gypsies Tramps and Thieves".
It hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 6, 1971, and
it remained there for two consecutive weeks. The single also
reached #1 in Canada and the Top 10 in many European countries,
becoming the number-one selling single of 1971 at more than 3
million copies worldwide. Today it remains one of her signature
songs.
The song describes the life of a girl, the narrator of the
song, who was "born in the wagon of a traveling show". Her
mother "used to dance for the money they'd throw", while her
father would do "whatever he could; preach a little gospel,
sell a couple bottles of doctor good". Although the people of
the town called them "gypsies, tramps and thieves", every night
"all the men would come around, and lay their money down".
When a young man is picked up, just south of Mobile, the
narrator is 16, while he is 21. Her family took care of him for
a while, although her father "would have shot him if he knew
what he'd done". Three months later, the narrator describes
herself as a "girl in trouble", and her young man has
disappeared.
Echoing the beginning of the song, her own daughter was
"born in the wagon of a traveling show", while her mother, the
narrator herself, dances "for the money they'd throw".
The title of this song has also been shown with alternate
spellings of "Gypsies" / "Gypsys". The lyrics of the song are
often ridiculed for their claim to have "picked up a boy just
south of Mobile", the idea being that "just south of Mobile" is
somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, there are at least
six small communities directly south of Mobile on the west side
of the bay, and twice that many on the east side.
Cher performed the song on the following concert tours:
The video for "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves" was Cher's
first music video. The video was a recorded performance of the
song on
The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hourin 1971. Throughout the
video Cher is singing in front of a house wagon and in front of
a fire. A second video was made, but it was very similar to the
original. In the second video, clips of dancing female gypsies
were shown.
In 2002, a special remix medley was created by Dan-O-Rama
for a video montage that was used in Cher's Living Proof: The
Farewell Tour. The medley contains the videos of "All I Really
Want to Do", "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves", "Half-Breed", and
"Dark Lady".