Lighter, my use of "bowdlerized" was technically incorrect--I meant generally corrupted, not necessarily sanitized.

If you look at the degree of corruptions in collected versions of works with known authors, you seldom find major changes in the space of two years, and recorded songs are less prone to variation than those circulated purely by word of mouth (or even by print). Yet there are many versions of "P***io" with a great amount of variation, more than we typically find in, say, the songs of Clark or Thorp (much older than P***io, if we accept the Aliff claim).

Consider also the wide variation in tunes. With the phonograph and radio days, the melodies for songs tended to become more or less fixed--one song, one tune. This was particularly true with new songs, which also tended to be written to more distinctive melodies, reflecting the rapid evolution of popular music at this time. Yet there seems to be little correspondence between the various P***io tunes I've encountered. It's as if each performer had learned a different tune, and not particularly flashy ones, either. It suggests an older genesis.

It's possible Aliff was the original author--he's the prime contender for one which might be identified. But the evidence considered together makes this claim improbable, and in its favor we have only the fact that he recorded the song (no date yet stated here, but certainly no earlier than 1929), backed by a third-hand assertion with no concrete details. Color me skeptical.


kendall, "Billy Venero" is one of my favorites, too, though I've largely reverted to the original text, "The Ride of Paul Venarez", and supplemented the tune, because otherwise it gets a bit tiring after 26 uninterrupted repetitions. It's one of the songs I sing most frequently, and after years I still choke up at the end. A powerful story told with well-crafted language, and I think that's why even after a six score years most versions stick surprisingly closely to the original.