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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 30 May 20 - 10:29 AM An ornate but immediately recognizable version of the tune appears as “Git Up in de Mornin’” in Thomas F. Briggs, "Briggs’ Banjo Instructor" (Boston: Oliver Ditson & Co., 1855). Briggs' arrangement is played by Tony Trischka (banjo) and Kenny Kosek (fiddle) on the album Minstrel Banjo Style, track 28. Snippet: https://www.amazon.com/Minstrel-Banjo-Style-Various-Artists/dp/B0000002M7 |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 30 May 20 - 11:01 AM Like other members of the blow fly family, the bluebottle lays eggs in excrement and in the wounds of animals, thus the association with “ponies” and the erroneous idea that the insect "stings." An English bawdy song to the "Blue Tail" tune (and related to Hugill’s “Oh, Aye, Rio”) appears in Bob Pegg’s "Folk" (1976). |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: mayomick Date: 01 Jun 20 - 06:12 AM "The OED shows examples of "bluebottle" (fly) from about 1700, long before the development of rhyming slang." thanks for the correction , Lighter. I woke with a hangover this morning so no thanks at all for the reference to eggs in excrement and wounds of animals. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: mayomick Date: 01 Jun 20 - 06:34 AM I remember Peggy Seeger suggesting people try singing the chorus with a strong emphasis on the word "don't" so as to make the two words "don't care" come out like one word "dontcare". Sang that way you get more of a southern twang to the chorus. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 29 Sep 22 - 04:29 PM Here's an even earlier appearance of the title: Charleston Daily Courier (March 25, 1831): "In the course of the evening, the comic songs of the 'Blue Tailed Fly,' and the 'Golden Fish' [to be sung] by Mr. Bristow." Three years later, in New Orleans: The Courier (March 4, 1834): "Comic song, 'The Blue Tailed Fly.'" |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 15 Jun 23 - 06:40 PM A month earlier in a different city: Daily Richmond Whig (Feb. 21, 1831): “In the course of the evening: -- Comic song: -- ‘The blue-tail’d fly,’ by master [sic] Jas. Mercer [age 10].” |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Acorn4 Date: 17 Jun 23 - 05:11 AM In UK there is an expression "like a blue arsed fly" which means similar to running round like a headless chicken and seems to sum up the manic way many people have to work and live these days. Possibly rooted in the "Blue Tail Fly" song? Blue Arsed Fly |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 17 Jun 23 - 07:43 AM See my post of 03 May 20. The connection is possible but uncertain. I now see that pre-1846 references must allude to the very different song about a "blue-tailed fly" posted by Masato Sakurai from a broadside on 25 Oct 01. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 17 Jun 23 - 03:43 PM Here is an earlier version of the familiar song - but with no Jimmy to crack corn: The News (St. Augustine, Fla.)(June 18, 1842): SONG.--OF THE BLUE-TAIL FLY. I have sung about the long-tail blue, So often you want something new, With your desire I'll now comply, My song is about a blue tail fly. Oh! Do Mr. Bugger Oh! Do Mr. Bugger do. Dar's many kinds of dese are tings, From different sort of insect springs, some hatch in June, some in July, But August brings de blue tail fly. If you should go in summer time, To Carolina’s sultry clime, If in the shade you chance to lie, You will soon find out the blue tail fly. Oh! Do Mr. Bugger Oh! Do Mr. Bugger do. When I was young I used to wait, On Massa's table hand [sic] de plate; And pass de bottle when he dry, And brush away de blue tail fly. Oh! Do Mr. Bugger Oh! Do Mr. Bugger do.... It continues almost identically to the 1846 version I posted on 29 May 20, but with different refrain. "Mr. Bugger" is the equivalent (one hopes) of "Johnny Booker." Reminder from an earlier post: the tune usually sung today is essentially the first strain of "Git Up in de Mornin'" (1855): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbhSyipH4MM The tune seems first to have been associated with "The Blue-Tail Fly" in print in Dorothy Scarborough's "On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs" (1925). |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 17 Jun 23 - 03:45 PM Actually, it's both strains! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 17 Jun 23 - 04:03 PM Sheet music from ca1846 with close to the well-known tune: https://digital.library.temple.edu/digital/collection/p15037coll1/id/7185 |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Halfmoon Charlie Date: 17 Jun 23 - 09:56 PM As was noted by someone else... James J. Fuld (1916 - 2008) in his "The Book of World Famous Music" 5th ed. P. 312 says the first known printing of this song was Jan. 20, 1846 under the title: "Jim Crack Corn, or The Blue Tail Fly" by F.D. Benteen. Fuld states that Dan Emmett is sometimes claimed to be the author of "Jim Crack Corn" but in a footnote says Emmett arranged a "De Blue Tail Fly" but did not compose it, and that Emmett's version has a different melody and words. Fuld supplies no lyrics in his book except for the refrain,"Jim crack corn I don't care." I don't pretend to know which story is correct about this song. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Mrrzy Date: 17 Jun 23 - 10:27 PM Guest, Gerry beat me to it |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 18 Jun 23 - 09:29 AM The earliest known text (1842 - with the "Mr. Bugger" refrain) was printed anonymously. Fuld had no access to this version, which has only recently been digitized. Though the newspaper it appeared in was published in St. Augustine, Fla., it may have been printed earlier in a big-city paper, not every page of which has survived. As the openings lines show, it was clearly from a stage performance: I have sung about the long-tail blue, So often you want something new, With your desire I'll now comply, My song is about a blue tail fly. The minstrel song "My Long-Tail Blue" was printed in the Louisiana Register (Apr. 11, 1834). The N.Y. Evening Post (Dec. 15, 1834) noted it was sung by "Mr. [Thomas D.] Rice," the noted blackface performer who had created the character "Jim Crow" in 1829-30, to judge from newspaper notices. It would be tempting to cite Rice as the composer of the 1842 "BTF," but others may have "borrowed" and sung "My Long-Tail Blue" in the years between 1834 and 1842. The 1846 BTF sheet music is titled "The Virginia Minstrels, No. 5, 'Jim Crack Corn,' or The Blue-Tail Fly, Composed for the Piano Forte." No composer is specified, the piece being copyrighted in the name of F. D. Benteen, the Baltimore publisher. The song was advertised as "new" in the "Times and Compiler" (Richmond) on Dec. 3, 1846, though The title "Jim crack corn" is mentioned in passing in the Yale Literary Magazine for July, 1846. The tune is a variant of that popularized by Burl Ives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKZDeJ7cajI Daniel D. Emmett (composer of "Dixie" and "Old Dan Tucker") was the founder and principal player of the Virginia Minstrels, organized in 1843. In 1842 he was already a blackface circus performer. He may have been behind the earlier version of BTF, or he may later have adapted an earlier version of the song. A lesser known 1846 version was published, copyrighted by C. H. Keith, in Boston by Oliver Ditson, under the title "De Blue-Tail Fly," beginning, "O when you come in summer time To South Carlinar's sultry clime...." Instead of "Jim crack corn," it has the odd refrain, "An' scratch 'im wid a brier too." It goes, moreover, to an unusual modal tune and is not attributed to the Virginia Minstrels. Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OriDf7Y4e7Q |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Dave the Gnome Date: 18 Jun 23 - 09:38 AM The use the songin 'Futurama' whenever Bender the robot gets affected by a magnet and starts singing Folk music. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 18 Jun 23 - 02:36 PM Since most of us learned the song as something of a children's song from records of Burl Ives or Pete Seeger, and since the "Jimmy" refrain now seems nonsensical, it's no wonder Futurama considered the whole piece absurdly cheesy or, um, "corny." |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn) From: Lighter Date: 14 Aug 25 - 04:26 PM Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser (Feb. 23, 1828): "The favourite Comic Songs of 'The Blue-Tail'd Fly,' and 'The Spider and the Fly,' sung by Mr. W. J. HAMMOND, in 'Peter Wilkins,' will be published in a few days; arranged by Mr. ALDRIDGE." Probably not the American song. |
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