"The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery" is a music hall

Music hall

Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...

 song written for the music hall star Miss Nelly Power

Nelly Power

Nelly Power , was an English singer, actress and performer in music hall, burlesque and pantomime. Her funeral attracted three to four thousand spectators at Abney Park Cemetery and a further great crowd at the start of the procession from her home.-Career:Power appeared in the music halls from...

 by George Ware in 1885, and made famous by Marie Lloyd

Marie Lloyd

Matilda Alice Victoria Wood was an English music hall singer, best known as Marie Lloyd. Her ability to add lewdness to the most innocent of lyrics led to frequent clashes with the guardians of morality...

. It is unusual in that it places the singer in the actual location of the theatre.
Song would be heard in a music hall, most likely in a variety show, with other performers such as; dancers, comedians etc.

Lyrics:

I'm a young girl, and have just come over,

Over from the country where they do things big,

And amongst the boys I've got a lover,

And since I've got a lover, why I don't care a fig.

The boy I love is up in the gallery

Auditorium

An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...

,

The boy I love is looking now at me,

There he is, can't you see, waving his handkerchief,

As merry as a robin that sings on a tree.

The boy that I love, they call him a cobbler

Shoemaking

Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or...

,

But he's not a cobbler, allow me to state.

For Johnny is a tradesman and he works in the Boro'¹

Where they sole and heel them, whilst you wait.

The boy I love is up in the gallery,

The boy I love is looking now at me,

There he is, can't you see, waving his handkerchief,

As merry as a robin that sings on a tree.

Now, If I were a Duchess and had a lot of money,

I'd give it to the boy that's going to marry me.

But I haven't got a penny, so we'll live on love and kisses,

And be just as happy as the birds on the tree.

The boy I love is up in the gallery,

The boy I love is looking now at me,

There he is, can't you see, waving his handkerchief,

As merry as a robin that sings on a tree.

• The Boro' or Borough (not borough) is presumably Borough Market
  Borough Market
  Borough Market is a wholesale and retail food market in Southwark, London, England. It is one of the largest food markets in London, and sells a large variety of foods from all over the world.-Information and History:...
  
   in Southwark
  Southwark
  Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...
  
  .
• These are the lyrics in the sheet music published by EMI Music Publishing, London, 1977.

In popular culture

The song is heard in the television detective series Cribb

Cribb

Cribb is a television police drama which debuted in 1979 as a 90-minute TV film from Granada Television in the UK...

during the episode entitled "Abracadaver".

A version of the song using the word "girl" and female pronouns is heard in the movie Different for Girls

Different for Girls

Different for Girls is a 1996 British/French comedy film in which one of the protagonists is a transsexual woman. The film is directed by Richard Spence and written by Tony Marchant, starring Rupert Graves and Steven Mackintosh.-Plot:...

.