After the Ball (song)

After the Ball is a popular song written in 1891 by Charles K. Harris. The song is a classic waltz in 3/4 time. In the song, an older man tells his niece why he has never married. He saw his sweetheart kissing another man at a ball, and he refused to listen to her explanation. Many years later, after the woman had died, he discovered that the man was her brother.

"After the Ball" became the most successful song of its era, which at that time was gauged by the sales of sheet music. In 1892, it sold over two million copies of sheet music. Its total sheet music sales exceed five million copies, making it the best seller in Tin Pan Alley's history. It exemplifies the sentimental ballads published before 1920, whose topics were frequently babies, separation, and death.

The song was originally written for an amateur minstrel show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was not an immediate success, but Harris published it himself and arranged for it to be interpolated into the touring musical production of A Trip to Chinatown, in which it was sung by J. Aldrich Libbey. Its popularity grew when it was performed regularly by John Philip Sousa and his band at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. In England, it was promoted by George Lashwood.

The song was later famously used in the musical Show Boat to exemplify the 1890s style of music. There it was performed by Norma Terris. In the 1936 film version of the musical, it was performed by Irene Dunne, and in the 1951 film version, by Kathryn Grayson. Only the first verse and chorus were sung in Show Boat.

It was also sung by Alice Faye in the 1940 biographical musical film, Lillian Russell. The song is also heard in the 1936 movie, San Francisco. In the HBO series Carnivàle, the second episode of the first season is titled "After the Ball is Over," and a fragment is sung at the end of the episode.

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