Origins: Monkey's Wedding

Subject: Origins: Monkey's Wedding
From: GUEST,diplocase
Date: 23 May 23 - 12:58 AM

Our own Max Spiegel posted an American folksong on YT, called "The Monkey's Wedding", which he learned from the singing of Dan Zanes.   
The Monkey's Wedding

The song "family" of The Monkey's Wedding has some fascinating branches scattered around the internet,
which I would like us to bring together in this thread. I will start by giving you what documentation I've found so far.

1. MUSIC HALL STYLE SONG - CIRCA 1860

A song called "The Monkey's Wedding" appears in THE SHILLING SONG BOOK:
A COLLECTION OF 175 OF THE MOST FAVORITE NATIONAL, PATRIOTIC, SENTIMENTAL, AND COMIC BALLADS OF THE DAY.
(Niagara Falls: W. E Tunis, 1860), page 16

You can read it here:
The Shilling Songbook - The Monkey's Wedding

THE MONKEY'S WEDDING.

The monkey married the baboon's sister;
Smacked his lips, and then he kissed her;
He kissed so hard he raised a blister;
She set up a yell.
The bridesmaid stuck on some court-plaster;
It stuck so fast it couldn't stick faster;
Surely 'twas a sad disaster;
But it soon got well.

What do you think the bride was dressed in?
White gauze veil, and a green glass breastpin,
Red kid shoes, — she was quite interesting;
She was quite a belle.
The bridegroom swelled with a blue shirt-collar
Black silk stock that cost a dollar,
Large false whiskers, the fashion to follow;
He cut a monstrous swell.

What do you think they had for supper?
Black-eyed peas, and bread and butter,
Ducks in the duck-house all in a flutter,
Pickled oysters too;
Chestnuts raw and boiled and roasted,
Apples sliced, and onions toasted;
Music in the corner posted,
Waiting for the cue.

What do you think was the tune they danced to?
"The Drunken Sailor," sometimes "Jim Crow;"
Tails in the way, and some got pinched, too,
'Cause they were too long.
What do you think they had for a fiddle?
An old banjo with a hole in the middle,
A tambourine made out of a riddle, —
And that's the end of my song.

2. An undated American broadside or song sheet of the same text can be seen here:
Song Sheet of The Monkey's Wedding ca 1860
Other song sheets by the same New York printer are dated around 1860.

3. The Monkey's Wedding had entered oral tradition in the US by the time Carl Sandburg included it in The American Songbag 1927, on p. 113.
Probably due to the existence of written sources, the lyrics remained pretty stable.   See it here:
Sandburg's American Songbag - The Monkey's Wedding

Meanwhile, the song family was pursuing a different track in the Caribbean. That will be in the next post.

Subject: Origins: Monkey's Wedding
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 May 23 - 06:22 PM

Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry on "The Monkey's Wedding":

Monkey's Wedding, The

DESCRIPTION: "The monkey married the baboon's sister, Gave her a ring and then he kissed her, He kissed so hard he raised a blister, She set up a yell." Verses, often nonsensical, about the proceedings at the wedding
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1865 (broadside, LOCSinging sb30342a); sheet music was published by Firth & Hall of New York some time after 1832
KEYWORDS: animal wedding nonsense humorous
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber)) US(Ap,MA,MW,NE,SE,So) West Indies(Bahamas)
REFERENCES (13 citations):
Greig/Duncan8 1903, "A Monkey's Wedding" (1 text)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 181, "The Monkey Married the Baboon's Sister" (1 short text plus 2 excerpts)
Richardson/Spaeth-AmericanMountainSongs, pp. 86-87, "The Monkey's Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune)
Bush-FSofCentralWestVirginiaVol5, pp. 54-55, "The Monkey's Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan 197, "The Monkey's Wedding" (1 text)
Linscott-FolkSongsOfOldNewEngland, pp. 241-243, "The Monkey's Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, p. 113, "The Monkey's Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune)
Scarborough-OnTheTrailOfNegroFolkSongs, p. 180, (no title) (1 text)
Spaeth-ReadEmAndWeep, pp. 68-69, [no title] (1 text, 1 tune)
Gilbert-LostChords, p. 114, [no title] (1 text)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #1455, p. 98, "The Monkey's Wedding" (2 references)
ADDITIONAL: Harry Dichter and Elliott Shapiro, _Early American Sheet Music: Its Lure and Its Lore, 1768-1889_, R. R. Bowker, 1941, p. 101, has a description of the earliest known sheet music
Elsie Clews Parsons, Folk-Tales of Andros Island Bahamas (Lancaster: American Folk-Lore Society, 1918 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), #115, pp. 166-167, "The Baboon's Sister" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST San113 (Partial)
Roud #3123
BROADSIDES:
LOCSinging, sb30342a, "The Monkey's Wedding" ("The monkey married the baboon's sister"), H. De Marsan (New York), 1861-1864
NOTES [62 words]: Linscott-FolkSongsOfOldNewEngland lists this as being sung to "The Drunken Sailor," and it will fit that tune -- but her tune is not quite the usual "Drunken Sailor." - RBW
Broadside LOCSinging sb30342a: H. De Marsan dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
Last updated in version 6.0
File: San113

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The Digitalk Tradition lyrics are from Sandburg's American Songbag:

THE MONKEY'S WEDDING (DT Lyrics)

The monkey married the baboon's sister,
Gave her a ring and then he kissed her.
She set up a yell.
The bridesmaid stuck on some court-plaster.
It stuck so fast it couldn't stick faster.
Surely 'twas a sad disaster,
But it soon got well.

What do you think the bride was dressed in?
White gauze veil and a green glass breast-pin,
Red kid shoes, quite interestin'.
She was quite a belle.
The bridegroom blazed with a blue shirt-collar,
Black silk stock that cost a dollar,
Large false whiskers the fashion to follow,
He cut a monstrous swell.

What do you think they had for supper?
Chestnuts raw and boiled and roasted,
Apples sliced and onions toasted,
Peanuts not a few.
What do you think they had for a fiddle?
An old banjo with a hole in the middle,
A tambourine and a worn-out griddle,
Hurdy-gurdy too.

What do you think were the tunes they danced to?
What were the figures they advanced to?
Up and down as they chanced to,
Tails they were too long.
"Duck In The Kitchen," "Old Aunt Sally,"
Plain cotillion, "Who Keeps Tally."
Up and down they charge and rally.
Ended is my song.

[From Carl Sandburg's "American Songbag".]
@animal @wedding
filename[ MONKWED

Here's a performance by Dan Zanes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MESbRYvPmDc