Obscure 19th Century US Songs--But with Hints! Quiz

Answer: Old King Crow

Famous in its day, "Old King Crow" was published in 1847 by George P. Reed of Boston, "as sung by the Virginia Minstrels," along with several other songs. The interlude about Jenny and her hoecake also allowed one of the men to sing falsetto, sometimes dressing entirely as Jenny, or even rarer, a female Jenny might perform. I hope that all the "cawing" in the question led one toward the answer that included a crow.

Answer: The Glendy Burk

Stephen Foster wrote the song, published in 1860, about a real boat named the Glendy Burke (with a final E), which ran on the Mississippi River from 1851 to 1855, when it sank near Cairo, Illinois. The boat may have been named for Glen D. Burke, a New Orleans investor, politician, and public school booster.

He made and lost two fortunes, one in the panic of 1837 and the other in the Civil War. Most sources say the boat was named for him because he was mayor of New Orleans, but he only served as mayor after Stephen Foster's death, for three weeks in 1865. If the boat was named for him, it was surely for his earlier activities. For more on Burke and the boat, see http://www.neworleanspast.com/todayinneworleanshistory/june21.html The only clue here was the "odd title," when none of the other choices are odd as song titles or apt to be a boat's name.

Answer: Dandy Jim from Caroline

A flurry of sheet music published between 1843 and 1845 in various cities with slightly different words, can only indicate "Dandy Jim from Caroline" was new and popular then, but its author and origin are difficult to pinpoint. The attraction of the song was in the blissful self-assuredness of an enslaved man Jim, whose master told him he was handsome, and when he looked in the mirror to check, he discovered it was true! The words typically focused on Jim's adventures when he dressed up, visited his "Miss Dinah," got married and named all his children after himself. Because Jim was enslaved and never could rise to the equal of a white man, there was reassuring comfort in the period, and poignancy today, that no matter what he gained--fine clothes, wife, children--a white man could take it away at any moment, so in the period, a white person might feel there was no harm in letting him get too proud.

Answer: Ring the Bell, Watchman

Henry C. Work wrote the song in 1865, imagining a watchman proudly ringing a churchbell or meeting house bell to announce what the whole country had been hoping for, peace, and for the northern states, a victory that they could rejoice in. In other countries after a few years, the song became something of a puzzle as people weren't sure what watchman where was announcing what. Regardless, it was of no importance to them and ripe for parody. Australia had "Click Go the Shears," about their great industry, sheep raising. Sailors produced "Strike the Bell, Second Mate," looking forward to the hour being rung so they could get off work.

The other three quiz answers, I hope, didn't fit the question at all, leaving only the bells in the right answer as a way to spread news.

Answer: Stop Dat Knocking at de Door

Published in 1847 by G. P. Reed of Boston, the sheet music advised the singer to recite the knocker's words in a guttural voice and use the heel to make the knocking sound. There seem to be just enough pauses in the singing for the speaking parts to fit in between and therefore be performed by the same person, but a duet or more could do it also.

The key to the humor is in how the speaker delivers his final line, after being told repeatedly to stop knocking: "Then let me in."

Answer: White Cat and Black Cat

Dan Emmett is occasionally credited with this silly and odd song about cats, that seems to have an underlying meaning about color and sexuality--or at least it could. There's no easy one-to-one correspondence in what things mean. It may be that merely introducing the idea of a tom cat, and white and black pussycats, was enough to indicate something in the 1850s. Several handbills exist with just the words, but full sheet music is rarer.

While all the title choices have to do with animals, close attention to "feline characters" would eliminate all but one.

Answer: Gumbo Chaff

The name Gumbo Chaff was often picked up as a humorous pseudonym for those who wished to remain anonymous. Elias Howe (1820-1895)--the banjo instructor, not the sewing machine inventor--used the name to keep his publishing under a pen name, but Thomas Dartmouth Rice is usually credited with actually writing the song and performing the character along with his many others in the 1830s.

Answer: Jump Jim Crow

The signature song of comedian Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice (1808-1860), it loses something without seeing him actually dancing too. That was something amazing that people commented on, just like a performance today that combines both singing and dancing. We all can see the world's best dancers in action, but in the period, most people were limited to seeing the best local dancer, or just enjoying some of the dozens of tall-tale or clever nonsense verses. The chorus left room for the singer's signature dance move:
"Wheel about and turn about and do just so,
Every time I wheel about and jump Jim Crow"
Rice was a white man from New York, but popularized the idea of comedy singers and dancers dressing as blacks far beyond what little attention it had had before. A reviewer in the London Times, Oct 26, 1836, wrote: "There is something in his chuckle which is not to be described, but which is equally rich, veracious, and inimitable. He has the faculty of twisting his limbs in such a manner as to represent the distortions of an ill grown African, and the very tibia of his legs appear to shape themselves in aid of his endeavours." The minstrel craze took off, progressing toward less nuanced, meaner, more vicious or solidified stereotypes.

Answer: A family member who died in the war

"The Vacant Chair" by George F. Root was a sentimental song suitable for the parlor, about the vacant chair at the family table left by a missing soldier. In the song, the soldier had definitely died, though the song also might have appealed to families whose loved ones were merely gone to war.

Answer: Sitting on a Rail

The singer pulls the raccoon off the rail and they get in a fight, after which the song goes on to other topics. Undated but probably from the 1840s, one popular version of the song clearly hinted that the master had been poisoned by the singer. Such things were more entertaining on the northern stage, where the minstrel show flourished, and apt to hit too close to home for southerners.

This song often allowed interludes of explanatory nonsense talking between verses, to add to the humor. It seemed to be popular when "sung by Mr. Leicester, at the New York and Philadelphia Theaters" according to one example of surviving music, and at the "Franklin [Theater], Chatham Square," probably in New York City, by the same Leicester, according to another, attesting to its popularity above the Mason Dixon Line.

The answers were easier, I hope, because all were songs, but only one was something a raccoon might be doing.