My [del]be-loved[/del] be-tolerated flip phone finally died and my kids were [del]unwilling[/del] unable to find the two spares I have, though I told them exactly where they are, so I was forced to enter the Teens with a new smart phone. Not retro-cool, but I can add outside ringtones, which I couldn’t with Flipper, so I installed the hot line ringtone from the Flint movies, or Austin Powers if you prefer.
The last phone I set it up on I had to construct a MIDI file to do it and that was when I realized it was the first few notes of “My Grandfather’s Clock,” Henry Clay Work’s big hit from 1876 and the source of the name “grandfather clock” for tall, free-standing clocks. Then I realized I was one of the few people left who know the words to that song. Not counting hymns and classical works, what are some old songs you know?
“Me and My Shadow”, my Grandmother used to sing it to me when I was a kid.
Also, I had a kid’s record player back in the early 1960s and I had a 78 of “There is a Tavern in the Town” that I played until it wore out.
Amazing Grace, Yankee Doodle, My Country Tis a Thee, Greensleeves, Camptown Races, Silent Night, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, God rest you merry, Gentlemen, Jimgle Bells, John Barleycorn, Maple Leaf Rag (1899, hopefully old enough), Mary had a little lamb, Star Spangled Banner actually, Drunkn Sailor, Haul Away Joe, Eliza Lee, Wedding March, Dixie, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Yellow Rose of Texas.
My brother searches and finds old music and records it with his blue grass group. I’ve heard my share of old, old songs. I love a lot of them. My favorites are his civil war era songs. So poignant.
Show Me the Way to Go Home is from 1925, maybe old enough. Thank you Jaws & ELP.
I got carried away before, while I know the Maple Leaf Rag well, I don’t know the lyrics.
I have no idea how old I’s the B’y is, but I learned it sailing on the Clearwaterand I think it is over 100. But it is at least 90+.
‘Mairzy Doats’ - 1944. (I thought it would be older.) . ‘Sloop John B.’ - best known as the Beach Boys song, but it was published in 1916, a song from the Bahamas.
This is a CD list of songs my brother recorded:
1 Soldiers Joy
2 Joe Bowers
3 Polly Wolly doodle
4 Abners Shoes
5 Just before the Battle Mother
6 Old Zip coin
7 The Glendy Burke
8 Jordan’s stormy banks
9 Cluck ol’ Hen
10 The Johnson Boys
11 Dandy Jim from Caroline
12John Bell of Tennessee
13 The Battle of Pea Ridge
14 Angel Band
Lots, I guess, but I’ll settle for Any Old Iron. For a reason.
It’s an old music hall number. Many were filthy fun for the rowdy working class, with a meaning which is now fairly obscure to a twenty first century listener. This song is hypothesised to be (in part)the story of a failed gay pick-up, but masquerading as a song about a rag and bone man on his rounds. I mean, does this really sound like chatter by a rag and bone man?
Lest we forget the context - homosexuality was very illegal at the time. And NB that this was invariably sung by a man.
Any old iron? Any old iron? [Rhyming slang - Iron hoof = poof]
Any, any, any old iron?
You look neat. Talk about a treat!
You look so dapper from your napper [head] to your feet.
Dressed in style, brand-new tile [hat],
And your father’s old green tie on. [this apparently being code, cf San Francisco handkerchief code]
But I wouldn’t give you tuppence for your old watch and chain, [shockingly unfashionable; therefore clearly, it turns out, not gay]
Old iron, old iron.
I love the subversion. I really hope the hypothesis is correct.
j
PS - the second link will walk you through Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow-Wow as well.
all y’alls, nobody else is permitted to call me that. :mad:
<sneer> Confederate scum </sneer>
I was at a Fourth of July parade that included some treasonous bastard trash. Totally inappropriate, so I sang the chorus of another of Work’s works, Marching Through Georgia.
I remember finding a stack of old '78s that had been handed down a few generations, and this was maybe the oldest of them - first heard it in the 1960’s but obviously much older than that.
The Sheik of Araby was a Tin-Pan Alley hit from the twenties, which frequently runs through my mind because “Araby” rhymes with the name of the street I live on.
