I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover

"I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover" is a song from 1927, written by Mort Dixon with music by Harry M. Woods.

The original hit recordings of the song were made in 1927 by Nick Lucas (#2), Ben Bernie (#3), and Jean Goldkette (#10). The song was revived in 1948 by several artists, most notably Art Mooney, whose recording topped the charts for 18 weeks. Other charting 1948 versions were made by Russ Morgan (#6), Alvino Rey (#6), The Three Suns (#10), The Uptown String Band (#11), and Arthur Godfrey (#14).

In modern times the song is perhaps most associated with Merrie Melodies cartoons, as it appeared in several of them, and a common tune played by the string bands in Philadelphia's Mummers Parade. The Sons of Ben, the official supporters' group of Major League Soccer's Philadelphia Union, have adopted the song as one of their chants, singing at every home match at the 20 minute, ten second mark, symbolic as the founding year of the Union.

Arrangements

• In 1948 Columbia records released a recording of the song by Tiny Hill and the Hilltoppers.
• The UCLA Band has played an arrangement of this tune since 1954, and uses the chorus as the second part of Rover, the Bruin victory song. Similar lyrics have been used for two other songs.
  • My Dead Dog Rover by Hank Stu Dave and Hank (Hank Landsberg & Dave Whited) from 1977, which appears on the Dr. Demento 25th Anniversary Collection - The parody version "I'm Looking Over my dead dog rover" was played on Dr. Demento's show for a time.^[1]
  • I’m Lookin’ Over My Dead Dog Rover by Kevin Gershon from 1973 and played on KMET FM in Los Angeles
• In the 1948 Warner Brothers cartoon Fast and Furry-ous, directed by Chuck Jones, Wile E. Coyote chases Road Runner through a cloverleaf interchange to an up-tempo orchestration of the tune.
• Also in 1948, Al "Jazzbo" Collins, a popular Salt Lake City disk jockey, is credited with popularizing Art Mooney's version of the song after he pulled a stunt playing the song over and over for hours on end. Some sources state 3 1/2 hours, other say it was 24 hours. For 120 minutes Mooney played on while phone calls poured in from pleased listeners who added insult to Collin's injury by praising him "for playing something good for a change." ^[2][3][4][5]
• In the 1950 cartoon Home Tweet Home, Tweety sings the song while in a birdbath at the opening of the short.
• In the 1952 cartoon Operation Rabbit, Bugs Bunny sings "I'm looking over a three leaf clover that I overlooked bethree."
• In the 1957 cartoon Ducking the Devil, directed by Robert McKimson, the Tasmanian Devil escapes from a zoo; Daffy Duck, on learning that there's a $5,000 reward for its return (and that the escapee is lulled by music) ends up singing to get him back to his cage. I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover is one of the songs he sings.
• In the 1959 cartoon Backwoods Bunny, written and directed by Robert McKimson, Bugs Bunny sings the first two lines of the song, stressing the sound four as that is the given signal for Elvis Buzzard to fire his rifle.
• Bob and Ray used a whistled version of the tune as the theme to their 1959-60 CBS Radio program.
• Jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins recorded a samba arrangement of the tune on his 1962 album Desafinado.
• The 1974 film The Groove Tube featured a segment in which Chevy Chase (in his first film role) sings the song while Ken Shapiro plays drums on Chevy's head.

Web sources

1. Dr. Demento database
2. Billboard Magazine
3. Dixieland Jazz
4. Dixieland Jazz
5. "The music business: career opportunities and self-defense" by Dick Weissman