slow boat to china

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:49:20 -0500, Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
wrote:

>Supposedly Frank Loesser wrote the song of this name in 1948.
>
>I can find a Washington Post column by Bill Gold in December, 1947 which
>says:
>
>"As the old proberb says, I'd like to get him on a slow boat to China."
>
>I can find nothing earlier using Proquest or Newspaperarchive.
>
>Was there truly an earlier proverb, or perhaps the song actually came out in
>very late 1947 but has a publishing date of 1948.

Loesser claimed to have written "On a Slow Boat to China" in 1945 -- he
even presented evidence to this effect in a court case when he was accused
of plagiarizing a song published in 1947 (Robert E. Overman's "Wonderful
You").

http://library.law.columbia.edu/music_plagiarism/069/069.html

In the ruling (in favor of Loesser), it's stated that Loesser obtained an
unpublished copyright on the song in May 1948 and a published copyright in
September 1948.  But perhaps Loesser was circulating the song between 1945
and 1948, allowing Bill Gold to pick up the expression.  Or,
alternatively, Loesser and Gold borrowed it from some other source.

--Ben Zimmer