"Come On-a My House" is a song written by Ross Bagdasarian and William Saroyan and originally released by Rosemary Clooney in 1951. Cousins Bagdasarian, a songwriter, and Saroyan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, wrote the song while driving across New Mexico in the summer of 1939. The melody is based on an Armenian folk song, and the lyrics reference traditional Armenian customs of hospitality.
The song was first performed during a 1950 off-Broadway production of The Son, and did not become a hit until the release of Clooney's recording. It is Saroyan's only known effort at popular songwriting and one of Bagdasarian's few successes from prior to his adopting the stage name David Seville, under which he found success with the song "Witch Doctor" and as the creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Rosemary Clooney version
Clooney's version of the song was the first of a number of dialect songs she did. She recorded it in early 1951 with Mitch Miller leading an ensemble of four musicians including harpsichordistStan Freeman. The single reached number one on the Billboard charts for six weeks.
Although she performed "Come On-a My House" for many years, Clooney later confessed that she hated the song and only recorded it because Miller said that she would be fired if she did not. In a 1988 interview, Clooney said that she could hear anger in her voice from being forced to sing the song.[4][5]
Cover versions
A version was released through Coral at the same time as Clooney's in 1951, performed by the song's composers Bagdasarian and Saroyan.
American country-music artist K. T. Oslin covered the song on her 2001 album, Live Close By, Visit Often. Her version reached number 40 on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It spent six weeks on the chart before peaking in June 2001. It is her only song to chart on the Dance Club songs list.[6]
In late 1951, MGM Records released a novelty answer song, "Where's-a Your House?", which charted on the Cash Box Hot 50 list. Sung by Robert Q. Lewis in dialect, the tune details the singer's frustrated attempts to follow up "Rosie's" invitation. Mickey Katz also released a Yiddish parody of the song for Capitol Records that year.
In popular culture
In 1974, Sparks titled their third album Kimono My House as a pun on the song's title.
^Scapeletti, Christopher (1998). "The Chipmunks/Alvin & the Chipmunks". In Graff, Gary; Durchholz, Daniel (eds.). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. p. 231.
^"Lears 290". www.rosemaryclooney.com. Archived from the original on 1 March 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
