Footnotes From “I Just Can’t Make My Eyes Behave” by Ada Jones to “Shine On Harvest Moon” by Nora Bayes

 *This, presumedly, was the inspiration of one of the most surreal of 1900s vaudeville hits, “The Bird On Nellie’s Hat.”

Here’s the scenario: Willie is trying to date Nellie but everywhere she goes, the bird goes too, hinting to the audience that Nellie is not everything she appears to be, suggesting that Nellie is a gold digger. When, for example, Nellie breaks off her engagement with Willie – after having avoided him for some time – and Willie suggests that she give back the ring, the bird chirps his go-to line: “well he don’t know Nelly like I do.”

 “The Bird On Nellie’s Hat” was sung Helen Trix, who had been writing songs and singing them on Vaudeville stages with her sister – both of them whom sported the same buoyant haircut - for years. She didn’t write this one though, and since “The Bird On Nellie’s Hat” was her only hit, her own songs probably weren’t all that good. But the bird is described as a “saucy bird”, and Helen sings it in a bright and saucy manner, with many a nudge-nudge and not a few wink-winks. (“The Bird On Nellie’s Hat” is a 4)

** All this fight-dancing was not only an act by Max and Misty, it was practically a dance craze, based on the way Parisian toughs danced in the kind of underground bars where patrons carried knives and murders were almost a daily occurrence. The kind of dance in which the first move was often for the man to slap a woman across the face. The toughs were called the Apache and so was the dance.

***The hit version on the phonographs was by Ada and Billy, and it was complete with smoochy kissing noises. They may indeed be the highlight of the record (“Kiss Kiss Kiss (If You Want To Learn To Kiss)” is a 3).

****This would not be Anna’s only “eye song.” Her 1908 Broadway vehicle, “Miss Innocence” – in which Anna is an orphan travelling to Paris to find her parents, an odd role for a 38-year-old to play – featured “I Wonder What’s The Matter With My Eyes.” Florenz just couldn’t stop including songs about Anna’s eyes!

***** Gus and Will had already had a hit with “The Game of Peek-a-Boo (I'd Like to See a Little More of You)” also known as the “I’d Like To See A Little More Of You (The Peek-a-Boo Sextette)”, a saucy sounding song title if ever there was one. The sheet music shows a dandily-dressed gentleman, with a bowtie, walking stick and monocle – all the better for ogling with! - trying to peak through a screen that a woman is dressing (or undressing) behind. The dandiness of the gentlemen is further enhanced by his saying of “thee”, and perhaps it is this that captures her heart. Or the fact that he spends much of the song on his knees, such is his desperation to see her naked. The song itself is also a saucy little number. Quite possibly the only hit song of the decade to recognise that sometimes people are naked and marketed to people who might like to be there when this happens.

After rebuffing his advances in the first verse and the first chorus – with credible excuses of being too busy going out in her runabout on Sunday or exercising her automobile on Monday – she finally surrenders to his bombardment of flattery - or as she puts it “such flattery, quite shatters me” - after which they decide they will spend every possible moment together. From peeking-tom to inseparable couple in three-and-a-half minutes flat!

When sung by Billy and Ada – because of course it was – “The Game of Peek-a-Boo (I'd Like to See a Little More of You)” was an adorable, out-of-tune, clunky, awkward, mock-operatic, mess, with Billy doubling down on the dandiness by whistling a jaunty tune (“The Game of Peek-a-Boo (I'd Like to See a Little More of You)” is a 5)

****** When Ada Jones gave “I Just Can’t Make My Eyes Behave” a shot, she aimed at shyness, she aimed at coyness, but she couldn’t prevent herself from sounding stiff and wooden. Part of it might be because there was no Billy Murray to play off of on this one. But most of it is probably because she just wasn’t Anna Held. And without Anna Held’s eyes, not to mention Anna Held’s curves and hat, Ada’s record just sounds well-behaved. Disappointingly so. (Ada’s version of “I Just Can’t Make My Eyes Behave” is a 3)

*******Despite this, she never changed her name to Nora Norworth. Although keeping to her feminist principles – and, as we shall see, Nora possessed staunch feminist principles – should be applauded, this still feels like a miss opportunity, stage-name-wise. Maybe, deep down inside, she knew that the marriage was not going to last.

******** Chicago may not have been Broadway. But it had its own scene, and it was sizzling. A scene centred on West Madison Street. A scene dominated by a trio of songwriters Hough, Adams and Howard – the latter of which was already a big deal all over America for writing “Hello! My Baby” with his wife and ragtime girl Ida Emerson - although, as it turned out, their productions often utilized the creative juices of minions, one of which wrote – uncredited at the time – the biggest hit the trio ever produced. The biggest hit to have come out of Chicago so far.

It was “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” from “The Prince Of Tonight”, a not particularly successful musical in which a college student becomes a life guard at Palm Beach and falls in love with – who else but - a heiress. She’s not interested, but the college kid has heard about a plant whose nectar will turn him into – what else but – a prince for the night. And thus he is able to seduce the heiress.

“I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” was a big enough hit for there to be big selling recordings by both Billy Murray (it’s a 5) and Henry Burr (it’s a 4). All of which is to say that maybe Nora left too soon.

********* Nora, for the record, was against both the stockings and the elephant.

********** Florenz must have known about all of this, since a few years later, Dave would become one of a handful of regular Follies composers, seemingly able to get enough people to understand his scratchings for “Daddy Has a Sweetheart and Mother is Her Name” to become a hit. Although not for the Follies itself.

“Daddy Has a Sweetheart and Mother is Her Name” was supposed to have been a hit for the Follies. Lillian Lorraine was supposed to have sung it. But she was fired due to not being on stage at the right time during a rehearsal – she was apparently having costume-changing difficulties – and so she just marched over to the competition and took the song with her.

Clearly Lillian and Florenz had broken up at this point, and Lillian was in the process of getting married. Twice! To the same man!! Once in 1912 – that marriage lasted about ten days – and then again in 1913. That time it lasted three months.

“Daddy Has a Sweetheart and Mother is Her Name” would end up being recorded by “Famous Record Maker” Elsie Baker, the second most famous Elsie Baker of the era (there’s another slightly more famous Elsie Baker who played roles such as “The Vampire Woman” in silent films) (“Daddy Has a Sweetheart and Mother is Her Name” is a 4)

********** It’s possible that Nora didn’t record “Shine On, Harvest Moon” herself because she was sick of it, but it’s equally possible that, like a whole lot of other actually famous people, she was simply too busy, and was prepared to leave it to the “Famous Record Makers.” Pretty much all of them gave it a go.

There was a Harry Macdonough and Elise Stevenson version. An Ada Jones and Billy Murray version. A Frank Stanley and Henry Burr version. And an Arthur Pryor’s Band version called “Shine On Harvest Moon Barn Dance (Over On The Jersey Side)”

The Harry and Elise version was the biggest, an utterly sex-less faux-opera stroll. Elise mostly flitters around during the chorus, whilst Harry mostly just loves the sound of his own voice (it’s a 3) Still it’s not as bad as Frank Stanley and Henry Burr’s version, where Frank virtually barks like a drill sergeant (it’s a 2), or as mystifying as Bob Roberts singing it in an Irish brogue whilst female backing singers encircle him and howl like banshees (it’s a 4).

So many versions, so many varying approaches, most of them misguided. Probably the best version, or at least the version that most closely captures the couple’s predicament is the corniest. You will not be surprised to learn that it was by our old friends Billy Murray and Ada Jones.

Billy and Ada make believable sexually-frustrated couple. The orchestra plays it slow and dirge-y, emphasizing the sense of doom that comes with the realization that you might not get any lovin’ until the spring. But best of all, Billy and Ada mug it up with a little play-act in the middle, Ada complaining that “I’s afraid” and Billy pleading that she “better embrace these golden opportunities, ‘cos the atmosphere will soon be very chilly,” “I never thought of that” and together they return to pleading with the moon. After all of that, there’s no time for Billy to propose (that version is a 5).

********** Nora and Jack even recorded another one, making a 180 degree pivot from “Shine On, Harvest Moon”, with “Turn Off Your Light Mr Moon Man”, a “Shine On, Harvest Moon” for couples who are not afraid of the dark, who would instead much prefer it for the purposes of getting nice and mellow; or, as Nora naughtily puts it a little later, “preliminary honeymooning.” So they ask Mr. Moon to be a good sport and go hide behind a cloud or something. It’s one of the few Nora Bayes records to match Nora’s naughty reputation (it’s a 5) as was the musical in which it appeared “Little Miss Fixit.” Nora played Delia Wendell, an expert at solving everyone else’s romantic problems, but hopeless in solving her own. Also lustful was a scene in which Nora and Jack have an accident in a canoe, with the consequent wearing of soaking wet clothes. This was deemed the height of sensuality at the time.

********** Naturally “By The Light Of The Silvery Moon” was also recorded by virtually everyone. There was Billy Murray with The Haydn Quartet (it’s a 3), The Peerless Quartet (it’s a 4), and Ada Jones, on her own (it’s a 5)