“If You Knew What the Gnu Knew”

“If You Knew What the Gnu Knew” is Willie Keith’s signature song: a coy, risqué comic number whose easy popularity contrasts with its modest musical and lyrical merits. First a fixture of nightclub and party entertainment, it follows Willie into Navy social life, where its repeated success brings him notice from an admiral and shows how performance becomes one of his chief means of winning an audience.

Form and comic method

The song compares the love-making customs of animals and humans. The narrator classifies it among Willie’s “cute” songs rather than witty or tuneful ones, and identifies it as his principal number for larger crowds. That distinction matters: its appeal is presented as a reliable effect on listeners, not as evidence of exceptional songwriting. Its suggestive premise offers a joke the audience can recognize without Willie needing to state it plainly.

The song belonged to a broader comic manner in which Willie approached risqué material obliquely. In his other ditties, he set up rhymes with words such as “plastered” and “bastard,” or “twitches” and “bitches,” then substituted harmless words instead of completing the off-color rhyme. The resulting pause and evasion delighted the cocktail-lounge audiences described in the narrative. Though the song itself is distinguished by its animal-and-human comparison, it sits within this same approach: suggestion and audience response matter more than polished wit.

From hotel lounge to Club Tahiti

Before entering the Navy, Willie earned a small union-minimum fee playing piano and singing original songs at a minor New York hotel. His presentation helped compensate for the limited talent the narration attributes to him. A close-trimmed Princetonian haircut, expensive clothes, and a childlike sweetness of face framed the act; his fawn-colored slacks, tweed jacket, cordovan shoes, patterned socks, and carefully knotted tie made him a conspicuous, polished figure beside the songs’ deliberately harmless evasions. The venue’s proprietor considered the entertainment a bargain when judged by its appearance, a dry measure of the gap between Willie’s self-chosen artistic career and the actual quality of his work.

A couple of months later, the proprietor of Club Tahiti, a dingy cellar nightclub on Fifty-second Street, hired Willie for ten dollars more per week. The interview took place on December 7, 1941, amid papier-mâché palms, dusty coconuts, and chairs turned upside down on tables. The change of venue gave Willie a better-paid platform, but the evidence does not suggest a corresponding change in the song’s character: “If You Knew What the Gnu Knew” remained the comic number associated with his piano act.

A portable party performance

After receiving orders for the Caine, Willie resented his assignment and regarded himself as a mistreated hero. In the days before going to sea, he joined Tom Keefer in a twenty-day stretch of drinking and parties, moving among clubs, bars, and girls’ apartments. Willie became popular quickly because he entertained at the piano. Officers and women responded enthusiastically to “If You Knew What the Gnu Knew”; he was expected to sing it several times each night. The song’s repetition is part of its function: it was not merely a number Willie performed once to introduce himself, but a crowd-pleaser people wanted to hear again.

Willie also improvised rhyming couplets about people present, including a joke linking Tom Keefer, Hirohito, and a reefer. The song and the name-rhymes belonged to the same social skill: turning a roomful of listeners into an audience for Willie’s quick, playful performance. His couplets astonished listeners, especially the women, while the larger party circuit included rented-car trips, Chinese food, abalones, crabs, invitations to fine homes, and exclusive clubs. The account calls this a great war with pointed irony; in this passage, the Pacific is less a setting for combat than an ocean the two men scarcely looked at as they pursued entertainment.

The performance travelled aboard the hospital ship Mercy as well. Tom Keefer arranged for the roommates to make their voyage west on the ship, where nurses gathered around Willie at the piano in the lounge each evening. The narrative notes restrictions on when and where men and women could meet, while Tom Keefer found ways around those limits. The song’s precise place in the shipboard performances is not specified, but its earlier success establishes the musical act that had made Willie popular during the parties before departure.

The admiral’s party

At an admiral’s home inside the base, the party began quietly, with guests mindful that they were within an admiral’s earshot. Urged on by Tom Keefer, Willie sat timidly at the piano and played. The admiral responded warmly to the music, praised the young reservists’ effect on the gathering, and moved close to the piano. Tom Keefer then pressed Willie to perform his signature song. Willie shook his head, but the admiral himself asked to hear whatever it was.

The song changed the scene. The admiral put down his glass and applauded; the others followed, and he addressed Willie as a find before asking his name. The reception turns the number’s familiar nightclub success into recognition from a senior officer. It does not establish that Willie has become a better songwriter. Instead, the episode shows that the song can cross settings—from a dingy club to a formal gathering—and still draw a room into shared amusement. Willie’s reluctance, Tom Keefer’s prompting, and the admiral’s approval make the performance an instance of social confidence achieved through others’ encouragement as well as personal talent.