The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #165063 Message #3981999
Posted By: Lighter
14-Mar-19 - 10:36 AM
Thread Name: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5
Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5
Hi, Richie. Regarding radically changing tastes, consider "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye" (1867), which was written by J. B. Geoghegan as comic song and was so regarded for many years.
There's even a contemporaneous mention of crippled Union Army veterans in an old soldiers' home laughing their heads off at it.
Some of the joke may have come from a keen awareness (long since lost) that it was a black-humor parody of Patrick S. Gilmore's immensely popular "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" (1863).
Not the other way around, by the way....