"Little Old Lady" is a popular song composed by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics by Stanley Adams, written in 1936 for the Broadway musical The Show is On. It was Carmichael's first composition to appear in a Broadway production, marking a notable departure from his usual work in jazz and popular song. The tune was first recorded by Ray Noble and His Orchestra in 1936. Unlike Carmichael's signature jazz standards such as "Stardust," "Georgia on My Mind," and "The Nearness of You," "Little Old Lady" is explicitly theatrical in character, functioning as a narrative character song with a vaudeville-influenced sensibility rather than as a jazz vehicle. The lyrics tell the story of a woman reflecting on her life, and the melody and structure are designed to serve the comedic and narrative elements of its stage context. Carmichael's later attempt at a full Broadway score, Walk with Music, ran only three weeks, and he never attempted another musical. "Little Old Lady" occupies an unusual place in Carmichael's catalog of several hundred songs. It is now rarely performed as a jazz standard except by vintage jazz specialists, though it has attracted occasional attention from jazz musicians drawn to its charming melodic qualities and the challenge of reimagining a theatrical piece within an improvisational context.
