If you remember back to the songs I covered from 1965, you might remember that “I Got You Babe” was a number one for the husband/wife team, Sonny and Cher. That was the only number one the two had as a couple, but later in 1965, Cher decided to start recording as a solo artist. The first hit she had was “All I Really Want to Do” which hit number fifteen on the pop charts. She had mixed success with her solo work and continued to record until 1971, when she finally got her first number one, “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves.”

“Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves” was written by Bob Stone who was a staff writer for producer Snuff Garrett. Garrett worked for Kapp Records and they had signed Cher to the Kapp label earlier in the year of 1971. Garrett wanted Cher to sing a “story” song much along the lines of “Old Rivers” by Walter Brennan (#5 in 1962) or “Song of a Preacher Man” by Dusty Springfield (#10 in 1969). So, he asked Bob Stone to come up with something. His first attempt at the song was called “Gypsys, Tramps and White Trash.” They worked on the words a little bit and finally ended up with “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves.”

It had been four years since Cher had had a hit and she really wanted this one to work. She had nothing to worry about as it went to number one. It was the first single from her self-titled album Cher which was later renamed to Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves in honor of the success of the single.

The song describes the life of a family who were part of a travelling show. She (the person singing the song) was born in a wagon on the road. It then goes on to talk about a boy (she was sixteen, he was twenty-one) who joined up with them and apparently impregnated the girl before leaving the group and disappearing, leaving the girl to take care of the baby. I’ve always been confused by the ending of the tale as the singer then says that “she” was born in a wagon of a travelling show. There is some dispute to this, but I believe that “she” is the baby that was born earlier. The father would now be the grandpa as it is sung about.

I have this article written up on Microsoft Word and everywhere the word “Gypsys” is referenced there is a red line under the word designating that it is misspelled and it is. The plural of gypsy is gypsies and that’s the way it should be spelled. I guess we can chalk that up to musical license.

“Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves” entered the Billboard pop charts on September 8, 1971 and took seven weeks to reach the number one spot where it stayed for two weeks. Cher would have two more number ones in her career in 1973 and 1974 and we will get to them in due time.