[2] Many artists recorded the song in 1927, including Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon, Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven, and King Oliver.
[4][5] The song has many different versions, but all share a common theme: Willie, a chimney sweeper with a dope habit, is introduced.
As Carl Sandburg wrote in his book The American Songbag: R. W. Gordon in his editorship of the Adventure magazine department "Old Songs That Men Have Sung" received thirty versions of Willy the Weeper, about one hundred verses different.
Willy shoots craps with kings, plays poker with presidents, eats nightingale tongues a queen cooks for him; his Monte Carlo winnings come to a million, he lights his pipe with a hundred dollar bill, he has heart affairs with Cleopatra, the Queen of Sheba, and movie actresses.
Had a job as a chimney sweeper, He had the dope habit and he had it bad, Listen while I tell you about a dream he had, He went down to the dope shop one Saturday night, He knew the lights would all be burning bright, Well I guess he smoked a dozen pills or more, When he woke up he was on a foreign shore, The Queen of Sheba was the first he met, She called him lovey-dovey and honey pet, She gave him a great big automobile, With a diamond headlight and a golden wheel, Down in Honolulu Willie fell in a trance, Seein' the dusky beauties do the Hula dance, His sweetie got in jail and Willie sure did shout, When he got the news that she had wiggled out, He landed with a splash in the river Nile, Ridin' on a seagoin' crocodile, He winked at Cleopatra, she said "Ain't he a sight" 'n' he said, "How 'bout a date for next Saturday night?"