“I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store)” was written by Harry Warren (music) and Mort Dixon and Billy Rose (lyrics), and published in 1931. It was introduced in the 1931 Broadway musical Billy Rose’s Crazy Quilt where it was sung by Fanny Brice (Rose’s wife at the time).
A number of versions appeared in 1931. The one that did the best, featured here, was by Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians with vocals by Clare Hanlon (and the Three Waring Girls and Chorus) on Victor Records. Bing Crosby released the second most popular version that year, and the Boswell Sisters put out their own, which did fairly well. It has subsequently become a pretty well-covered pop song.
In the history of popular music, it’s not unusual to find questions asked about who really wrote a given song due in part to the fact that someone in a position to push a song to popularity might ask for or simply receive songwriting credit for their services. And as is well known, the money is in publishing. Broadway impresario Billy Rose apparently was familiar with these kinds of arrangements as a “composer” of more that 50 hit songs including “Barney Google,” “That Old Gang of Mine,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” “Me and My Shadow,” “Without a Song,” and “I Found a Million Dollar Baby.” Rose biographer Earl Conrad writes:
Nobody clearly knew what he wrote or didn’t write…. Publishers tend to credit him with writing the songs known to bear his name as a lyricist…. But tales rumble on … that Billy could feed and toss in a remark and monkey around, but that others did most of the writing.
Anyway, an interesting aside, whatever the case may be on this particular tune. Word and chords attached.
I Found a Million Dollar Baby
Verse: It was a lucky April shower;
It was the most convenient door.
I found a million dollar baby
in a five and ten cent store.
Verse: The rain continued for an hour,
I hung around for three or four,
around a million dollar baby
in a five and ten cent store.
Chorus: She was selling china
and when she made those eyes,
I kept buying china until
the crowd got wise. Incidently,
Verse: If you should run into a shower,
just step inside my cottage door,
And meet the million dollar baby
from the five and ten cent store