"Jimmy Crack Corn" or "Blue-Tail Fly" is an American song which first became popular during the rise of
blackface minstrelsy
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-Black people to portray a caricature of a Black person.
In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of racial stereo ...
in the 1840s through performances by the
Virginia Minstrels. It regained currency as a
folk song
Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...
in the 1940s at the beginning of the
American folk music revival
The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Billie Holiday, Richard Dyer-Benn ...
and has since become a popular children's song. Over the years, several variants have appeared.
Most versions include some idiomatic
African American English
African-American English (or AAE; also known as Black American English, or Black English in American linguistics) is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refers t ...
, although
General American
General American English or General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm) is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or so ...
versions now predominate. The basic narrative remains intact. On the surface, the song is a
black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
slave
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
's lament over his white
master's death in a horse-riding accident. The song, however, is also interpreted as having a subtext of celebration about that death
[Mahar, William J]
''Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture'', pp. 234 ff
University of Illinois Press ( Champaign), 1999.[Harris, Middleton & al]
''The Black Book'', 35th ann. ed., p. 32
Random House (New York), 2009. and of the slave's having contributed to it through deliberate negligence
[Lott, Eric. ''Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class'', pp. 199–200. Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1993. .] or even
deniable action.
Lyrics
Melody
The melody is similar to "
Miss Lucy Long "Miss Lucy Long", also known as "Lucy Long" as well as by other variants, is an American song that was popularized in the blackface minstrel show.
After its introduction to the stage by the Virginia Minstrels in 1843, "Miss Lucy Long" was adopt ...
" and was originally set for piano accompaniment,
although "De Blue Tail Fly" was marketed in Boston as one of "Emmett's Banjo Melodies". The four-part chorus favors a single bass and three tenors: the first and third tenors harmonize in thirds with the second completes the triads or doubles the root, sometimes crossing the melody line.
The versions published in 1846 differed rather markedly: "De Blue Tail Fly" is modal (although Lhamar emends its B♭ notation to C minor) and hexatonic; "Jim Crack Corn", meanwhile, is in G major and more easily singable.
Its simplicity has made it a common beginner's tune for acoustic guitar. The melody is a chain of thirds (G-B, F♯-A, G-B,
C, B-D, C-E) harmonized a third above and below in the manner of the choruses in
Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous ...
.
Meaning
The first verses usually establish that the singer was initially a
house slave.
[''The Traditional Ballad Index'':]
Laws I19">The Blue Tail Fly [Laws I19
/nowiki>">/nowiki>Laws I19">The Blue Tail Fly [Laws I19
/nowiki>. He is then charged with protecting the master out of doors—and his horse as well—from the "blue-tailed fly". This is possibly the blue bottle fly (''species:Calliphora vomitoria, Calliphora vomitoria'' or ''species:Protophormia terraenovae, Protophormia terraenovae''), but probably the tabanus, mourning horsefly (''species:Tabanus atratus, Tabanus atratus''), a
Hematophagy, bloodsucking pest
Pest or The Pest may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Pest (organism), an animal or plant deemed to be detrimental to humans or human concerns
** Weed, a plant considered undesirable
* Infectious disease, an illness resulting from an infection
** ...
with a blue-black
abdomen
The abdomen (colloquially called the belly, tummy, midriff, tucky or stomach) is the part of the body between the thorax (chest) and pelvis, in humans and in other vertebrates. The abdomen is the front part of the abdominal segment of the torso. ...
found throughout the
American South
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
. In this, the singer, ultimately, is unsuccessful; the horse
begins to buck, and the master is thrown and killed. A
coroner's jury is convened to investigate the master's death, or the singer is criminally charged with that death, but owing to the "blue-tail fly," the slave escapes culpability.
The chorus can be mystifying to modern listeners, but its straightforward meaning is that someone is roughly
milling
Milling may refer to:
* Milling (minting), forming narrow ridges around the edge of a coin
* Milling (grinding), breaking solid materials into smaller pieces by grinding, crushing, or cutting in a mill
* Milling (machining), a process of using rota ...
("cracking") the old master's
corn
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
in preparation for turning it into
hominy
Hominy (Spanish: maíz molido; literally meaning "milled corn") is a food produced from dried maize (corn) kernels that have been treated with an alkali, in a process called nixtamalization ( is the Nahuatl word for "hominy"). "Lye hominy" is a ...
or
liquor
Liquor (or a spirit) is an alcoholic drink produced by distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar, that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. Other terms for liquor include: spirit drink, distilled beverage or hard ...
. There has been much debate, however, over the subtext. In the 19th century, the singer was often considered mournful and despondent at his master's death; in the 20th, celebratory: "Jimmy Crack Corn" has been called "the baldest, most loving account of the master's demise" in American song.
The debate has been further muddled by changes to the refrain over time. Throughout the 19th century, the lines referred to "Jim",
"Jim Crack",
or "Jim Crack Corn" and lacked any conjunction across the line's
caesura
image:Music-caesura.svg, 300px, An example of a caesura in modern western music notation
A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for "cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a Metre (poetry), metrical pause or break in a Verse (poetry), ...
; following the rise of highly-
syncopated
In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "place ...
musical genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from ''musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are some ...
s such as
ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...
and
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
,
anaptyxis
In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epenth ...
converted the name to "Jimmy" or "Jimmie" and the "and" appeared, both putting more stress on their measures'
backbeat. This has obscured some of the possible original meanings: some have argued that—as "Jim" was a generic name for
slaves
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
in minstrel songs—the song's "Jim" was the same person as its blackface narrator: Speaking about himself in the
3rd person or repeating his new masters' commands in
apostrophe
The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one o ...
, he has no concern with his demotion to a
field hand now that his old master is dead.
Another now-obscured possible meaning derives from ''jim crack'' being
eye dialect for ' ("worthless"
[''Oxford English Dictionary'', 1st ed. "gimcrack, ''n.'' and ''adj.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1899.][Farmer, John & al]
''Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present'', Vol. III: Fla–Hyps
1893.): The narrator is so overcome with emotion (be it pleasure or sorrow) that he has no concern at all about his gimcrack cracked corn, his substandard rations.
Since "corn" was also a common rural
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
ellipsis
The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...
and
euphemism
A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...
for "
corn
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
whiskey
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Various grains (which may be malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden cask ...
", it could also refer to the slave being so overcome that he has no concern about his rotgut alcohol. The 1811 Dictionary of Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose defines a jimcrack as a "spruce woman", so perhaps the lyric refers to the slave being so sad he doesn't have interest in an approaching beautiful woman.
Other suppositions include that "cracking" or "cracking corn" referred to the now-obsolete
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and
Appalachian slang meaning "to gossip" or "to sit around chitchatting"; that the singer is resting from his oversight duties and allowing Jim to steal corn or corn liquor; that "Jim Crack" is simply a synonym for "
Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
" by means of the dialectical "crack" to reference the
crake
The rails, or Rallidae, are a large cosmopolitan family of small- to medium-sized, ground-living birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity and includes the crakes, coots, and gallinules. Many species are associated with wetlands, althoug ...
; or that it is all code for the old master "Jim" cracking his "corn" (
skull
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...
) open during his fall. The 1847 version of the song published in London singularly has the lyrics "Jim Crack com'", which could refer to a poor
Southern cracker (presumably an overseer or new owner) or a
minced oath
A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics. An example is "gosh" ...
for
Jesus Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
(thus referencing indifference at the
Judgment Day
The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Day of Resurrection or The Day of the Lord (; ar, یوم القيامة, translit=Yawm al-Qiyāmah or ar, یوم الدین, translit=Yawm ad-Dīn, ...
); the same version explicitly makes the fly's name a wordplay on the earlier minstrel hit "
Long Tail Blue", about a horse. A number of
racehorse
Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...
s have been named "Jim Crack" or "Blue Tail Fly" and, in at least one early-20th century variant of the song, it's given as the name of the horse that killed the master, but that is not a common element of the song. (Another uncommon variant appeared in the 1847 ''Songs of Ireland'' published in New York: it has the slave being given away by the master.
)
Explanations of the song based upon "jimmy" or "jimmie" being
slaves' slang for
crows or
mule
The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two pos ...
s (here being allowed into the old master's corn fields instead of being chased away) or deriving "jimmy" from "gimme" are unsupported by the existing records.
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
, for instance, is said to have maintained that the original lyrics were "gimme cracked corn" and referred to a punishment in which a slave's
bacon rations were curtailed, leaving him chickenfeed;
[Peterson, Pete.]
RE: Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don't Care
on ''Mudcat''. Accessed January 2, 2006. the same lines could also just be asking for the whiskey jug to be passed around. The idea that Jim or Jimmy is "cracking open" a jug of whiskey is similarly unsupported: that
phrasal verb
In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (ex ...
is attested at least as early as 1803 but initially applied to literal ruptures; its application to opening the cap or cork of a bottle of alcohol was a later development.
History
The present song is generally credited to
Dan Emmett
Daniel Decatur Emmett (October 29, 1815June 28, 1904) was an American songwriter, entertainer, and founder of the first troupe of the blackface minstrel tradition, the Virginia Minstrels. He is most remembered as the composer of the song "Dixie ...
's
Virginia Minstrels,
[Place, Jeff & al]
"Blue Tail Fly" (liner notes).
''American Favorite Ballads'', Vol. 1. Smithsonian Folkways, 2002. whose shows in New York City in the mid-1840s helped raise
minstrelsy to national attention.
["Dan Emmett" in ''The Encyclopedia of New York City'']
2nd ed. Along with "
Old Dan Tucker
"Old Dan Tucker," also known as "Ole Dan Tucker," "Dan Tucker," and other variants, is an American popular song. Its origins remain obscure; the tune may have come from oral tradition, and the words may have been written by songwriter and perfor ...
", the tune was one of the breakout hits of the genre and continued to headline Emmett's acts with
Bryant's Minstrels
Bryant's Minstrels was a blackface minstrel troupe that performed in the mid-19th century, primarily in New York City. The troupe was led by the O'Neill brothers from upstate New York, who took the stage name Bryant.Mahar 38.
History
The eldest ...
into the 1860s.
It was also a common song of
Tom Rice
Hugh Thompson Rice Jr. (born August 4, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for . The district serves most of the northeastern corner of the state and includes Myrtle Beach, the Grand Strand, Florence ...
.
[Lhamon, W.T. Jr]
''Jump Jim Crow: Lost Plays, Lyrics, and Street Prose of the First Atlantic Popular Culture'', p. 21
Harvard University Press (Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
), 2003. The song was first published (with two distinct sets of lyrics) in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
and
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
in 1846, although it is sometimes mistakenly dated to 1844.
However, as with later
rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western music ...
hits, it is quite possible Emmett simply received credit for arranging and publishing an existing African-American song.
The song was certainly picked up by slaves and became widely popular among them. The chorus of the song not uncommonly appeared in the middle of other African-American folk songs, one of which may have been its original source. The song differed from other minstrel tunes in long remaining popular among African Americans: it was recorded by both
Big Bill Broonzy and
Lead Belly
Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
was an admirer of the tune, calling it "that buzzing song". Throughout the 19th century, it was usually accompanied by the harmonica or by
humming which mimicked the buzzing of the fly (which on at least one occasion was noted disrupting the
parliament of Victoria, Australia.). Lincoln would ask his friend
Ward Lamon
Ward Hill Lamon (January 6, 1828 – May 7, 1893) was a personal friend and self-appointed bodyguard of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Lamon was famously absent the night Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, having been ...
to sing and play it on his
banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
[Wright, John]
''The Language of the Civil War'', p. 35: "Blue Tail Fly"
Greenwood Publishing. and likely played along on his harmonica. It is said that he asked for it to be played as the lead-in to his
address at Gettysburg.
[Fuld, James J]
''The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk'', 5th ed., p. 312
Dover Publications (New York), 2000.
Following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the "Blue Tail Fly" was repopularized by the
Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (July 6, 1911 – May 8, 1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (January ...
' 1947 recording with the
folk singer Burl Ives. It then became part of the general
Folk Revival through the '50s and early '60s before losing favor to more politically charged fare, as parodied by
Tom Lehrer's "
Folk Song Army". A 1963 ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' article averred that "instead of ... chronicling the life cycle of the blue-tailed fly", the "most sought-after folk singers in the business"—including
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
,
Theodore Bikel, and
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
—were "singing with hot-eyed fervor about police dogs and racial murder". All the same, Seeger claimed to have been present when
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...
first taught the song to Burl Ives for a
CBS radio show
[Seeger, Peter. ''American Favorite Ballads''. Music Sales (New York), 1961.] and their duet at the
92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y, New York (92NY) is a cultural and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the corner of East 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Founded in 1874 as the Young Men's Hebrew Association, the ...
in New York City in 1993 was Ives' last public performance.
The song has also occurred as
instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
s:
* An instrumental rock & roll rendition, "Beatnik Fly", was recorded by
Johnny and the Hurricanes
Johnny and the Hurricanes were an American instrumental rock band from Toledo, Ohio, United States. They specialized in adapting popular traditional melodies into the rock idiom, using organ and saxophone as their featured instruments. Between ...
in 1959, and released on
Warwick Records, catalog number M-520. It charted on the Billboard
Hot 100
The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming ...
at number 15 in the US, and number 8 in the UK.
* A surf version (inspired by "Beatnik Fly"), "Foam And Fiberglass", was recorded by
Mike Adams and the Red Jackets
Mike may refer to:
Animals
* Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum
* Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off
* Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and documen ...
on the album ''Surfers Beat'' by
Crown Records in 1963.
Seeger maintained that the song's subtext gave it a
social justice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...
element
but began (with 1953's ''American Folksongs for Children'') to perform and market the work as a children's sing-along. Usually under the name "Jimmy Crack Corn", it remains common at campfires and
summer camps.
It is also sampled in a number of rap songs—including
Tuff Crew
Tuff Crew is a hip hop group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, dubbed "Philly's first Rap Supergroup". Members include Ice Dog, L. A. Kid, Tone Love, Monty G, and DJ Too Tuff.
Career
They released four albums. Their joint debut LP with The Krow ...
and
Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem (; often stylized as EMINƎM), is an American rapper and record producer. He is credited with popularizing hip hop in middle America and is critically acclai ...
's compositions (both titled "Jimmy Crack Corn")—playing on the present usage of "
crack".
In popular culture
See also
* "
Shoo, Fly, Don't Bother Me!"
* "
Polly Wolly Doodle
"Polly Wolly Doodle" is a traditional American children's song. It was sung by Dan Emmett's Virginia Minstrels, who premiered at New York's Bowery Amphitheatre in February 1843, and is often credited to Emmett (1815–1904).
It was known to have ...
", another minstrel song still sung by American children
* ''
Slave Songs of the United States
''Slave Songs of the United States'' was a collection of African American music consisting of 136 songs. Published in 1867, it was the first, and most influential, collection of spirituals to be published. The collectors of the songs were Nor ...
''
*
Songs of the Underground Railroad
Songs of the Underground Railroad were spiritual and work songs used during the early-to-mid 19th century in the United States to encourage and convey coded information to escaping slaves as they moved along the various Underground Railroad rout ...
References
External links
Full lyrics of Dorothy Scarborough's 1925 accountin ''On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs'' at Archive.org
*
Jimmy Crack Corn, a modern version recorded in ''From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore'' (Google Books)
*
/nowiki>]" at the ''Traditional Ballad Index''
Lyr Add: (De) Blue Tail Flydiscussion on Mudcat.org gives several variants of title and lyrics, early publication information; its links include numerous other discussions of the song. Accessed September 10, 2005.
Jimmy Crack Corn – Man or Mythdiscussion on Mudcat.org includes discussion of lyrics, cites further sources. Accessed September 10, 2005.
{{Authority control
1840s songs
Blackface minstrel songs
Blue Tail Fly
"Jimmy Crack Corn" or "Blue-Tail Fly" is an American song which first became popular during the rise of blackface minstrelsy in the 1840s through performances by the Virginia Minstrels. It regained currency as a folk song in the 1940s at the ...
Blue Tail Fly
"Jimmy Crack Corn" or "Blue-Tail Fly" is an American song which first became popular during the rise of blackface minstrelsy in the 1840s through performances by the Virginia Minstrels. It regained currency as a folk song in the 1940s at the ...
American folk songs
American poems
Blue Tail Fly, The
Pete Seeger songs
Songs about fictional male characters
Songs about death