Origins: In Room 202 (Leslie, Kalmar, Harris)

Subject: In Room Two Hundered and Two
From: Earl
Date: 24 Mar 98 - 09:11 AM

I've been reading _The Mauve Decade_, a very entertaining book about America in the 1890's, written in 1926. There is a reference to the birth of an American folksong with the suicide of Kitty Kane, the mistress of some robber baron. She poisoned herself in room 202 of a Chicago hotel in 1893. Three lines of the song are given:

In room Two Hundred and Two,
The walls keep talking to you.
Shall I tell you what they said?

Does anyone know the rest of the song?

Subject: RE: In Room Two Hundered and Two
From: GUEST,Greg Loux
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 12:48 PM

Turn out the lights and go to bed.

Subject: RE: In Room Two Hundered and Two
From: Amos
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 03:18 PM

A good guess, Greg -- at least so I assume. I don't know the song, though!

Subject: RE: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:06 PM

Hmmm. This is intriguing. This page (click) says that Indiana State University has sheet music for the song, which it calls "In Room 202," Music by: Dave Harris, and words by: Edgar Leslie and Bert Kalmar - published in 1919. I couldn't find sheet music at Levy, or at the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress. The Mauve Decade reference is here (click).

There is another Kitty Kane song here (click) - is it the same Kitty Kane?

Do we have to go to Indiana to find this song?

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: GUEST,Greg Loux
Date: 20 Oct 03 - 09:22 AM

Actually, I'm not guessing. I found a recording of Room 202 and I'm trying to decipher the lyrics. I tripped over this thread while trying to search for the lyrics.

The recording is by Snuffy Jenkins and Pappy Sherrill on Rounder 0059 entitled "Crazy Water Barn Dance"...Room 202 is sung by Julian "Greasy" Medlin and the chorus is

Room Two Hundred and Two
Walls keep talking to you
Shall I tell you everything they said
Put out the lights and go to bed

Snuffy Jenkins, as you may know, is credited with the banjo picking style that Earl Scruggs ran with and made famous in bluegrass music. The recording was made in the 1970s, when these guys were in their elder years. They played on the radio in the 1930s recorded some 78s in the 1940s. According to Mark Wilson's liner notes, Greasy Medlin had a long career in medicine show work.

I've figured out all of the lyrics Greasy Medlin sings, with the exception of one line in the last verse. It would be great to see the sheet music.

Intriguingly yours,
-Greg Loux

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: GLoux
Date: 20 Oct 03 - 09:42 AM

Thanks for posting the link to Indiana State's sheet music site. They have a link for submitting photocopy requests, which I just sent them.

Plus, as you can see, I joined Mudcat Cafe.

-Greg

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: GLoux
Date: 21 Oct 03 - 04:31 PM

In the Mauve Decade, I see the reference to Kitty, but not Kitty Kane.

-Greg

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Oct 03 - 11:34 PM

It would be much scarier if they said: Put out the lights and come to bed...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: RWilhelm
Date: 22 Oct 03 - 07:32 PM

I don't know where I got 'Kane' I was much younger when I started this thread. Looking forward to those lyrics, GLoux!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: mack/misophist
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 02:30 AM

Please post the lyrics. Please?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 02:44 AM

G'day Joe,

There is another Kitty Kane song here ... is it the same Kitty Kane?

No! John Warner's Kitty Kane was an historical madame in the Victoria, Australia, mining town of Valhalla, back in the 1880s/90s. She definitely didn't commit suicide ... she lived on to an old (if not too respectable) age in the town ... and was buried in great style, and with fond memories.

(BTW, Joe: Not too far from that point - Did you notice that ... 4 years after your request ... I posted the words of Lady Monroe/Munro in the resurrected thread on The Old Tarpaulin Jacket ... ?

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: RWilhelm
Date: 23 Oct 03 - 09:03 AM

Kitty's last name is revealed in the appendix of The Mauve Decade:

"... my information as to the meeting of Guy de Maupassant and Kitty Kane on the steps of Purgatory belongs in the class of conjecture along with the book of Revelations."

Still don't know who she was, though.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: GLoux
Date: 24 Oct 03 - 02:37 PM

I have yet to receive the photocopy of the sheet music from Indiana, but I will post the lyrics when I get them.

I'm a little concerned that I'll be disappointed with them when I receive them, because on the other Greasy Medlin songs I have he's rewritten the lyrics to standards to be comical. Room 202, as he sings it, is comical and there's one line I have yet to decypher after listening to it at least 100 times. If he's true to the original, the sheet music should solve my problem, which is what I'm hoping for.

I expect to receive the photocopy within the next day or two.

-Greg

Subject: Lyr Add: IN ROOM 202 (E Leslie, B Kalmar, D Harris
From: GLoux
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 02:19 PM

IN ROOM 202
Edgar Leslie, Bert Kalmar & Dave Harris
New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., ©1919

1. I've got a little story I will tell to you.
It's all about a certain room two hundred and two.
The mattress on the bed is just as hard as nails.
You go to sleep and dream a lot of funny tales.

CHORUS: In room two hundred and two,
The walls keep talking to you.
Shall I tell ev'rything that they said,
Or put out the light and go to bed?

2. A fellow and his wife engaged the room one night.
By talking in his sleep, he caused a terrible fight.
He whispered, "Jennie, let me have a kiss or two."
His wifie's name was Alice. Now he's black and blue.

3. A fellow woke his wife upon a windy night.
He said, "An open window always gives me a fright.
I want another blanket, Hon. I'm getting cold."
She said, "The breeze ain't hitting you. You're getting old."

4. One day a lady said, "My name is Miss McGrath.
Can you accommodate me with a room and a bath?"
The clerk said, "I'll give you a room, but, Miss McGrath,
My wife would leave me flat if I gave you a bath."

5. A fellow drank so much one night he got the shakes,
He saw a million diff'rent kind of wiggling snakes,
While walking in his sleep, he found an open door,
Next day he told the judge he'd like to see some more.

---

Click to play

Subject: The lyrics have arrived...
From: GLoux
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 02:46 PM

I received the photocopy of the sheet music today, and I've posted them *. I probably didn't need to start a new thread (in retrospect) but, being new to Mudcat, it's a discovery process for me...

The song is comical, and it is basically the same song that Greasy Medlin sings. That's the good news.

Unfortunately (for me), Greasy only sings two of the five original verses. He made up the other three verses that he sings, including the one verse I'm having difficulty in deciphering (also, he doesn't repeat the chorus each time, as the sheet music indicates). I stopped trying to figure out the words while I was waiting for the sheet music to arrive, so now I will renew my efforts. I will post Greasy's words when I figure them out.

-Greg

* Transferred from new thread to message above.

Subject: Commentary...
From: GLoux
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 02:58 PM

I have to admit that the reference to "In Room 202" in "The Mauve Decade" is fascinating fiction, given that the song is not an American folk song, but rather a composed/published/copyrighted song created by a team of prevalent popular songwriters of that time. Would this be the "folk process" at work?

Best regards,
-Greg

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: RWilhelm
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 06:57 PM

Thanks for posting the lyrics, Greg. I had hoped it would give at least a little clue about Kitty Kane, now that it's gotten me interested again. It's probably some reference that would have been obvious in the 20's, but hasn't reached the internet yet.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 08:41 PM

Mr. Offer....

Also...

another THANK YOU for the Indiana Link.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: GLoux
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 09:04 AM

IMHO, I don't think the author of the Mauve Decade thought that the song had anything to do with Kitty Kane. I think the first three lines of the chorus served the purpose of dramatizing Kitty's end. If the fourth line of the chorus were included in the text, it wouldn't have made sense. Since it didn't fit the purpose of dramatizing Kitty's death, the fourth line was left out...

That's my $.02 worth.

-Greg

Subject: Lyr Add: ROOM 202 (from Greasy Medlin)
From: GLoux
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 11:35 AM

ROOM 202
(Adapted by Julian "Greasy" Medlin)

Got a little story I'm gonna tell to you,
All about a room Two Hundred and Two.
Mattress on the bed, hard as nails,
To make you fall asleep, you read a lot of funny tales.

CHO: Room Two Hundred and Two
Walls keep talking to you.
Shall I tell you everything they said?
Put out the lights and go to bed.

Now a lady got a room by the name of Miss McGrath.
She said, "Clerk I want a room and a bath."
"I can give you a room, Miss McGrath,
But my wife, she'd leave me if I give you a bath."

Well I went from my room about a couple o'clock.
I walked to the door but the door was locked.
Looked over the transom and the worst of all,
Another mule kickin' in my stall.

Now a lady had a he-dog and she had a she.
She couldn't tell the he from the she.
Now the way to tell the he from the she the best
Count out the buttons on the little dogs' vest.

Now I got a gal lives out in the sticks.
All she'll make a ford pass two bird stick.
Shimmies on the mantle, shimmies in the pool,
Comes to shakin' shimmy, she's a shimmy-shakin' fool.

Note: These words were transcribed from "Crazy Water Barn Dance" (Rounder 0059) by Snuffy Jenkins and Pappy Sherrill. Room 202 is sung by Julian "Greasy" Medlin. I've tried my durndest to get them right, and I think I did, with the exception of the second line of the last verse. I cannot make sense of what I'm hearing, so what I've used is the best I could come up with. If someone can figure out what Greasy is singing there, please let me know.

GL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRN7f4TS-A&t=2081s

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 01:39 AM

Thanks to the sheet music GLoux mailed me, we now have a tune.
Thanks, Greg.

---

Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: GUEST,Thank you
Date: 17 Jul 06 - 03:32 PM

This was a song / music that my dad and his best friend used to play in the 40's and 50's and 60's in the clubs and bars where they played guitar. The words they used were a LOT more risque...a LOT more risque...but you have brought a smile and a tear to me. A good memory. Thank you. If you ever find the off-color words please post them. They are hillarious too. I was too young the last time I heard them and cannot remember them...

Blessings
Sarah-Ann

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two / In Room 202
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 08:35 AM

Indiana State University now has a .pdf file of the sheet music of IN ROOM 202. Click here, if you have Adobe Reader..

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two / In Room
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 11:14 AM

GLoux, I'm thinking that mystery line might be

She could make a Ford pass a T-Bird stick    [i e stick shift]

or something of that nature. Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two / In Room 202
From: GLoux
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 11:41 AM

Bob,

That certainly works better than what I came up with...

-Greg

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two / In Room 202
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 01:18 PM

Here's the relevant text copied from "The Mauve Decade"—see the link that Joe posted above:

So in that city [Chicago], on the night of July 5th [1893], as it slumbered under the doubled protection of Mrs. [Potter] Palmer and Miss [Frances] Willard, there came the birth of an American folksong. The agent of a New York bank was roused and brought hastily to room 202 in a packed hotel. The room held a priest, some doctors, a handsome, scared lad from a small town in Iowa who blubbered that the lady just told him she was taking some headache medicine, and the bared body of a wonderful woman stretched on a bed in the muscular torments that follow a dose of strong poison. There was also a purse that enclosed a startling bankbook and some cards. The adolescent knew nothing. She had spoken to him on the Midway at the [World's] Fair. They let him go. The priest prayed and the body stirred until dawn. Delicate and just audible, voices filled the room and there came the scents of Jockey Club and heliotrope, the fluttering whisper of laces, the chuckled gossip of "The Black Crook's" dressing-room. . . . Kitty, did y'see Jim Fisk's sleigh with the silver bells yest'day? . . . Say, Kitty, who gave you the house in Twelfth Street? Honest, Kitty, I won't tell! . . . Kitty! Kitty, Ned Stokes shot Jimmy over at the Grand Central an' the p'lice are lookin' for Josie Mansfield! . . . These astral echoes floated over the fair body until it loathsomely stiffened on the bed. And then something slim and exquisite rose in a cloud from the sagging wreck. She stood preening the ruffles and the slanting hat in which Brady photographed her for the delight of bucks along Broadway in 1869. She hitched tighter to the famous ankles her striped Watteau stockings and her feet that once ran bare across bogs in County Glare [sic] now tripped in those ridiculous little shoes from which men drank champagne. Outside a misty door Kitty dawdled, a bit scared, uncertain in the gloom pierced by red shadows rolling up from Purgatory, and then a voice ineffably French murmured behind her: "Ma toute belle!" and Kitty turned to beam professionally on a delicious gentleman, smartly groomed once more, whose grin suggested release from some sharp agony. They looked and liked. The gallant blond fellow tucked under one arm a ghostly advance copy of M. Pierre Louys's Songs of Bilitis, not yet published, after turning down the page at . . . "Mon dernier amant, ce sera toi, je le sais. Voici ma bouche, pour laquelle un peuple a pâli de désir. . ." and pretty Kitty went down the ordained steps with Guy de Maupassant chattering tenderly in her ear, and now the ribald sing:


"In room Two Hundred and Two,
The walls keep talking to you.
Shall I tell you what they said?" . . .

And in New York a balance of more than three hundred thousand dollars acquired by a dancing-girl who didn't dance was split among her Irish kin. She was not yet forty. In Constantine perhaps Pierre Louys was polishing off, "Se peut il que tout soit fini! Je n'ai pas encore vécu cinq fois huit années . . . et déjà voici ce qu'll faut dire: On n'aimera plus . . .

In the text they never use the name "Kitty Kane." They never tell you Kitty's last name.

Frankly, I find this writing style annoying. It's hard to tell what part is supposed to be true and what is fiction.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two / In Room 202
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 01:44 PM

I'm thinking the book "The Devil in the White City" might have some information about this.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two / In Room 202
From: GLoux
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 02:28 PM

I looked at the .pdf file and thought, what a shame they didn't include the cover...

I checked the web site, and sure enough they have the Room 202 Cover there as a separate .pdf file.

-Greg

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Jul 08 - 03:35 PM

Did anyone copy the sheet music? Links removed.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Jul 08 - 03:38 PM

Ok, I found the lyrics above.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room Two Hundred and Two
From: GLoux
Date: 10 Nov 09 - 04:05 PM

I guess things got a bit reorganized at ISU. Here are new links...

In Room 202 Cover

In Room 202 Sheet Music

-Greg

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room 202 (Leslie, Kalmar, Harris)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 11 May 10 - 11:38 AM

Here's the sheet music in a PDF file at Mississippi State University.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room 202 (Leslie, Kalmar, Harris)
From: GUEST,Room 202 McG
Date: 19 Jan 12 - 11:43 PM

My father is 84 born in 27 he used to sing this song go me all the tome now that I see that there our last name is in the song since I read the lyrics after forgetting them. I haven't sang them since I was a child with him. I'll ask him tomorrow what he can remember ....thx for the memories
God bless Jamie McGrath

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: In Room 202 (Leslie, Kalmar, Harris)
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 04:45 AM

in room 202, the walls keep talking to you. shall i tell you everything that they said,,, or shut out the light and go to bed!