That’s right, folks: it’s time for another episode of I Completely Misunderstood Those Song Lyrics!

For years I assumed that the Andrews Sisters were consoling a baby, or possibly a small child, and rocking her gently to sleep. The baby’s father has been shipped off to the Mediterranean or somewhere to fight in World War Two, that being a topical thing to do in 1943. Given the context and era, the obvious choice of a character to be consoling the baby is her mother (who also has her own concerns and frets about her husband leaving to fight in a war), and the Andrews Sisters are singing from the perspective of the mother. There are many textual clues which support this interpretation, such as the choice of the words “baby” and “papa”, the nonsensical nursery-rhyme character of “do dah do day”, and the echoes of “rock-a-bye baby” in “bye, bye, bye baby”. And it would not be out of place with other songs of the era which express a similar sentiment, such as Vera Lynn’s “Goodnight Children Everywhere” (1940).

Yesterday I listened more closely to the lyrics, and my understanding of this song was completely upended.

The first crack in my interpretation is the pronoun I. Why would the mother say When I come back? Is she going somewhere too? That might be liberating, but ahistorical.

So far, so good for my interpretation. The mother’s affirming to the baby that even though things are bad now, with Papa leaving to go fight a war, they’ll get better soon. This echoes Vera Lynn singing, “Tho’ you are far away, she’s with you night and day / Goodnight children everywhere,” to children who had been evacuated to the countryside during the Blitz.

And then:

Whaaaat? At first I vaguely thought this love would be a familial sort of love, between parent and child, but no, make love definitely means have sex. Why are the Andrews Sisters singing a song about a mom assuring her baby that her dad will have sex with her? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for the dad to have sex with the mom? This is so unfathomably creepy now—

OH! Papa is just some soldier, and Baby is his sweetheart. There are no children, I repeat, no children involved in this scene. And Baby is also You, and Papa is also he and I. So this song is being sung from the perspective of Papa. Who for some reason speaks in the third person. And who for some reason is played by the Andrews Sisters. Okay.