The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #139762   Message #3942803
Posted By: Jim Dixon
09-Aug-18 - 08:51 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Songs of The Happiness Boys/Jones & Hare
Subject: Lyr Add: EDDIE LEONARD BLUES (V & E Stanton)
From the sheet music at Mississippi State University:


EDDIE LEONARD BLUES
Words and music by Val and Ernie Stanton, ©1922.

1. I am haunted by a tune
Warbled by a ragtime coon.
Ev'ry time I hear it, I am simply wild the whole day long.
In his satins, he's so neat!
Lawdy, how he shakes his feet!
Although I love to see him dance, I'd rather hear him sing a song
Just like that—

CHORUS: Ida, oh, lovin' Ida, won't you sing it again, sing it again?
Ida, please play that haunting refrain, wonderful strain.
When you sing those roly-boly eyes,
That's when you begin to tantalize.
Sweetness, sweetness, oh boy, that's paradise!
Eddie, you are beloved as a minstrel man, best in the land.
You sing those songs like nobody can, for you understand,
I'm tired of hearing songs about the pale moonshine,
Songs of dear old Dixieland and mammy mine,
So sing me Ida, I've got the Eddie Leonard blues.

2. All the songs we learned to play,
Sang them while they had their day,
But like winter, spring and fall, they pass along without regret.
There's one tune that seems to cling,
Enticing folks to dance and sing,
A melody that's come to stay and sway, I'll say the one best bet,
That's dear old— CHORUS


You can hear Jones & Hare sing this song at the The Internet Archive. They sing only the first verse and chorus, and interpolate a bit of "Ida, sweet as apple cider."

Eddie Leonard was a white vaudevillian performer and songwriter who frequently performed in blackface. Some of his songs were:

I Want to Go Back to the Land of Cotton
Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider
Lyna
Mandy
Molasses Candy
Roly Boly Eyes
Sweetness