Footnotes From “How'd You Like To Spoon with Me?” by Corrine Morgan to “I Love, I Love, I Love My Wife – But Oh! You Kid!” by Arthur Collins

 Footnotes From “How'd You Like To Spoon with Me?” by Corrine Morgan to “I Love, I Love, I Love My Wife – But Oh! You Kid!” by Arthur Collins

*Occasionally, although very rarely, it even referred to having actual sex.

** Sometimes proposals don’t go so well. Sometimes the girl says no, and there are consequently no kisses. Sometimes the girl says yes, but not now. Sometimes that postponed “yes” turns into a “no.” In “Aint You Coming Back To New Hampshire Molly” the narrator is writing a letter to Molly, who once promised to marry him, but she had left town, and all the village is laughing at the poor sod for his foolishness at believing she’ll be coming back. Foolish sod Harry Macdonough clearly believes that Molly will be coming back in his oompah-pah version (it’s a 3).

“Aint You Coming Back To New Hampshire, Molly” was written by J Fred Helf, a master of melancholic melodies in which the worse possible scenario is usually the one that occurs. One of his other hits was “When Summer Tells Autumn Goodbye” in which the narrator’s wife dies. Autumn to J. Fred meant death. In “I’m Tying The Leaves (So They Won’t Come Down)” a boy hears a doctor say his favourite playmate is going to die in the autumn, so he does everything he can to prevent the season from coming around. Fortunately in this case, the girl gets better. The lad takes credit.

A far more preferable way for a relationship to end than being jilted – because far more honourable and manly – was if you went off to war and died fighting. “Break-up songs” were less common - since that would require a divorce and that wasn’t really allowed back then - and the few that did exist were downright reasonable about it. One of the biggest “break-up songs” of the era was recorded by Henry Burr. Henry’s reaction… to being… rejected… and quite possibly cheated upon… was what… you might expect from… a man who began… his singing career as a soloist in a church. In “Good-Bye, Good Luck, God Bless You (Is All That I Can Say)” he prayed for her (it’s another 3).

But the vast majority of songs focused on the “spoon”-ing.

*** Given Tin Pan Alley’s predilection for describing almost-sexual activities in the twee-est of possible terms it is a shame that the word “firkytoodle” had died out by that point. In an ideal world “firkytoodle’ would have appeared in countless Tin Pan Alley classics. “Would You Like To Firkytoodle With Me”? “Let’s Take An Old Fashioned Firkytoodle”? “It’s Nice To Have A Firkytoodle”? “If I’m Goin’ To Die, I’m Going To Firky Some Toodle”?

**** Corrine came from a farm in Ohio before moving to New York in 1902 and seemingly instantly recording for Edison, who seemed to have used her for experimental purposes whilst they tried to figure out how the female voice could possibly be recorded. Corinne appears to have been Edison’s favourite guinea pig for these purposes, and by 1904 they were getting some reasonably listenable results. Such as “Listen To The Mocking Bird”, a duet with Frank Stanley, a B-list hammerer and banjo player but also seemingly everyone’s favourite duet partner.

Legend has it that “Listen To The Mocking Bird” had been stolen from a Black barber about 50 years earlier, before being completely forgotten and then “rediscovered” – and there was an awful lot of publicity about this rediscovery of a long, lost song - and featured in a Broadway musical called “The Mocking Bird” all about how the King of France forgot to tell the people of New Orleans that he’d given them to Spain, so they turn into pirates.  Or something. It’s complicated.

If “Listen To The Mocking Bird” was an example of a successful recording of the female voice, then you can see what the Edison engineers were up against. Frank’s voice was typically described as a “booming baritone”, and indeed it does BOOM! Corinne meanwhile sounds shy, retiring, “demure”, but ultimately, she hardly sounds at all. She’s almost drowned out by someone in the background doing a mockingbird impersonation (“Listen To The Mocking Bird” is a 3)

 

Corrine did better with “Toyland”, a Victor Herbert lullaby from his operetta “Babes In Toyland.”

Other than a deeply predictable premise of an evil uncle trying to steal the children’s inheritance, the plot includes a shipwreck, gypsies, a Spider’s Den with a Moth Queen, Old Mother Hubbard, and an evil genius who builds demonic dolls which predictably turn on and kill him. Little of this is immediately obvious on the dreamy “Toyland”, although some of the lyrics do calmly inform the listener – most likely a child – that the world is a dark and dangerous place. Quite.

Corrine didn’t have to compete with Frank Stanley on “Toyland”, but instead the dreamy tones of The Hadyn Quartet, who float in and out mummering “toyland, toyland, little girl and boy land” and “childhood’s joyland, mystic merry Toyland” before pivoting to informing the kids that growing up is a bummer. But even that dismal information that is delivered with the same soft hush. The whole thing is actually quite lovely (“Toyland” is a 5)

*****One reason that gender was not an issue is that many of the songs were stories and told in the third person. This convention – like so much else – was a holdover from vaudeville where songs were competing with comedians and freak shows and often took the form of a tall tale, some outlandish story, that the performer had heard and just had to share with you. The story may have featured a woman, may have included dialogue from the woman, but the narrator himself was not necessarily a woman.

****** Billy and Ada sang any song that Tin Pan Alley put in front of them with both gusto and an apparent awareness of just how ridiculous these songs were, particularly in “Cuddle Up A Little Bit Closer, Lovey Mine,” a title that sounds ridiculous even when the Edison announcer is introducing it, before instantly becoming worse. They rhyme “cheek so rosy” with “comfy, cozy” and then “head to toesie.”

That original 2-minute 1908 version is ridiculous enough. Respect must be given therefore for their willingness to double down on that ridiculousness, with a 1909 version that is double the length; a mighty epic 4 minute version, that switches suddenly half way to a series of impersonations; “as grandpa would sing it” the first impression is announced before rhyming “crinkled” with “silver sprinkles” (in her hair), a soldier (thus capturing the lucrative soldier-saying-goodbye-before-going-off-to-war market) and then finally, for some reason, a baby. It’s all extremely ridiculous. But even that is not as ridiculous as the version performed during its parent Broadway extravaganza “Three Twins” – the plot of which is too stupid to get into here – which featured similar impersonators of the characters at seven different ages! (the 4-minute 1909 version is a 5)

The stupidity of the “Three Twins” plot makes sense when you get into the backstory of one of the Tin Pan Alley poets that wrote it: Karl Hoschna.

Karl had adopted songwriting as a career after becoming convinced that his initial profession - that of an oboe player for Victor Herbert - would do wacky, zany things to his mind. Since he truly believed that playing an oboe would have this effect, an argument could be made that he transitioned to his new career too late. Karl would die in 1911, soon after his biggest success with the musical “Madame Sherry”: a “French Vaudeville” show with a millionaire, a playboy nephew and a dance school called The Sherry School Of Aesthetic Dancing, where they appeared to mostly teach the polka. 

Very slightly saucier was “I’ve Taken Quite A Fancy To You”, which was helpfully described on the sheet music as a “Flirting Song.” Billy and Ada have heard that spooning and honeymooning is nice, and “that spooning once, means spooning twice”, and they are rather eager to experience it themselves (it’s a 3)

******* Not everybody wanted to get married of course. There were many a confirmed bachelor and they got their own anthem with “I Want What I Want When I Want It”, which describes the delights of staying up all night drinking with good company, contrasting it with the infernal noise of children. It was from an operetta “Mlle. Modiste” about a French hat-shop girl who wants to be an opera singer but is so good at selling hats that her employer does everything he can do to discourage her from following her dreams. There is of course also a love story with a crochety old and disapproving uncle who doesn’t want his nephew – a Viscount – to marry a shop girl. “I Want What I Want When I Want It” is a very convincing argument against the union, or indeed, any union at all.

Then there was “No Wedding Bells For Me” – Billy Murray had a hit with it, rhyming the title with both “I’m as happy as can be” and “Gee Whiz! I’m glad I’m free” – finding conclusive evidence that he made superior life decisions once a baby – one of 12 that his friend has spawned – starts rubbing sauerkraut in his hair (“No Wedding Bells For Me” is a 3)

********“I’m Looking For A Sweetheart (And I Think You’ll Do)” had become a hit due to its placement in possibly the most unlikely Broadway spectacular of the year. Unlikely for a song called “I’m Looking For A Sweetheart” that is. “Sporting Days” was a Hippodrome production – and we’ve already established that Ada was quite a fan of these – that although mostly based around sport, also included a re-enactment of a predicted event a long way into the future: an air battle in 1950 titled “The Battle Of The Skies.”