Origin: Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care

Subject: RE: Origin: Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Mar 18 - 04:11 PM

The earliest sheet-music printings (1846-47) have "Jim crack corn!" not "Jimmy," which seems not to appear until the 1940s.

So it's no "mistake" for "gimme," as suggested above.

Cracked corn was used everywhere as chicken feed.

I can't find any instance of "to crack corn" meaning "to gossip" - outside of clever explanations of the meaning of the phrase in the song.

BTW, F. D. Benteen's 1846 tune is rather more like "In and Out the Window" than what was popularized by Burl Ives.

There was another minstrel-era tune that was rather different. Sample:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-music&field-keywords=south+carolina+%22blue+tail+fly%22

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jimmie Crack Corn
From: EBarnacle
Date: 04 Feb 21 - 03:02 PM

This is a rather convoluted approach but, here goes. Beelzebub literally translates to "Lord of the Flies." The mention of the Devil in the some versions of the song raises the possibility that the person who wrote the song was literate enough to know of the translation.
If this theory is correct, as with many other slave and pseudo-slave songs, there is the underlying message of "Be damned to ol' Massa."

Subject: RE: Origin: Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care
From: GUEST,Sean O'Shea
Date: 05 Feb 21 - 05:31 AM

My interpretation has always been that Jimmy Crack is the whip wielding overseer and 'corn'
is a mishearing of 'gone'
Jimmy Crack is gone and I don't care, the masters gone away.

Subject: RE: Origin: Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 05 Feb 21 - 08:40 AM

Nathan gives further info on the 1844 version of De Blue tail Fly. It appeared in 'Old Dan Emmett's Original Banjo Melodies, Second Series, 1844'. '. Neither composer or author is mentioned. The edition is dated 1844 on the title page, and by mistake, 1846 on the inside'.

There is no 'Jimmy Crack Corn' chorus and the only refrain, a single line, runs 'An scratch 'im wid a brier too'. There are 10 stanzas. I can't read music but the tune doesn't appear to be the well-known 'In and out the windows' version. The tune is the same for all 4 lines.

Subject: RE: Origin: Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 05 Feb 21 - 09:29 AM

We need to remember that minstrel performers like Rice, Emmett, Brower, Whitlock and co. were all performing as solo and duo acts quite a few years before the Virginia Minstrels set up the successful troupes in 1843. They were already picking up tunes, choruses, the language, body language (albeit exaggerated and burlesqued) and typical phrases from African-Americans, but the verses were largely new and their own invention.

Subject: RE: Origin: Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care
From: Lighter
Date: 05 Feb 21 - 10:49 AM

Steve, the "brier" tune is quite unusual.

A first-rate rendition is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OriDf7Y4e7Q

Subject: RE: Origin: Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care
From: Lighter
Date: 05 Feb 21 - 10:57 AM

From my post last year to another thread:

This may be the earliest appearance of a song called "The Blue Tail'd Fly" - the familiar one, presumably:

Daily Republican Banner (Nashville) (Nov. 20, 1838), p. 3:

“On Tuesday Evening, Nov. 20 / will be presented / Mr. M. G. Lewis’ celebrated tragedy in 5 acts, entitled

                                        ADELGITHA
                            Or, The Fruits of a Single Error
                                                      -----------------------
Song, The Blue Tail’d Fly…….by Master Austin.”

The next mention is more than seven years later, from the Daily National Republic (Buffalo, N.Y.) (Feb. 6, 1846), p. 2:

“George J----, the pride of the Podunk bar, can…sing ‘The Blue tail fly.’”

And the earliest newspaper text, from the Yazoo City (Miss.) Whig (Nov. 13, 1846), p. 1:

“Blue Tailed Flies—We have always had an aversion to ‘blue tailed flies,’ but by request of a musical friend, we let the following loose among our readers:...

I’ve sung about my long tail blue,
So often you want something new,
With your desire I'll now comply;
My song is about dat blue tail fly.
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care,
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care,
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care.
Ole massa gone from home.

Dar’s many a kind ob dese here tings,
From different sort ob insects springs,
Some hatch in spring and some in July,
But August brings dat blue tail fly.
    Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care, &c.

If you should go in de summer time,
To Carolina’s sultry clime,
If in de shade you chance to lie,
You’ll soon find out dat Blue tail Fly.
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care, &c.

When I was young I used to wait,
On massa table and hand de plate;
And pass de bottle when he dry,
And brush away dat Blue tail Fly.
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care, &c.

Arter dinner massa sleep,
He make dis nigga wigil keep,
And when he go to shut his eye,
He tell me watch dat Blue tail Fly.
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care, &c.

Ole massa ride in de arter noon,
I follow wid de hickory broom;
De poney [sic] being berry shy,
When bitten by dat Blue tail Fly.
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care, &c.

Ole massa ride around de farm,
De flies so numerous did swarm,
One bit de pony on de thigh,
De debil take dat Blue tail Fly.
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care, &c.

De pony run, he jump, he pitch,
He tumbled massa in de ditch;
He was dead and de jury wondered why,
De verdict was de Blue tail Fly.
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care, &c.

Dey laid him beneath the simmon tree;
His epitaph is dere, to see,
Beneath dis stone inforced to lie,
All by de means ob de Blue tail Fly.
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care, &c.

Ole massa's dead, oh let him rest,
Dey say all tings are for de best,
I nebber shall forget until I die,
Ole massa and dat Blue tail Fly.
Oh, Jim Crack Corn don't care, &c.

Quite the same text, ”Blue Tail Fly,” except for some additional dialect spellings, appears in The (Charleston, S.C.) Courier (July 19, 1853), p. 4, but there the “Jim Crack Corn” refrain is replaced by “Oh. Mr. Booker, do Mr. Booker, wake up Katy,/ Or I’ll scratch you with a briar.”

Subject: RE: Origin: Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 05 Feb 21 - 02:35 PM

Hi Jon,
Great stuff! That tune reminds me of 'Old Joe Clark' but it might be partly because of the style of playing. So 1838 in a play in Nashville it is 'Tail'd' rather than 'Tail'. Pity we don't have that text yet.

Couple of points about that 1846 Yazoo text. It has the look of a new version and 'Jim Crack Corn' all has capitals implying possibly that it's a one-off pseudonym/nick-name like 'Jim Crow'. Also the lack of 'and I' presents the same possibility. Further it adds sense, saying this Jim Crack Corn didn't care about what happened to his master.

Subject: RE: Origin: Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care
From: Lighter
Date: 05 Feb 21 - 04:30 PM

Steve, I like your interpretation of capitalized "Jim Crack Corn."

Check out some of the other 2nd S.C String Band's music. They do a bang-up job on almost everything. No one could sound too much more enthusiastic or "authentic."