"Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" is a

parlor song Parlour music is a type of popular music which, as the name suggests, is intended to be performed in the parlours of houses, usually by amateur singers and piano, pianists. Disseminated as sheet music, its heyday came in the 19th century, as a resu ...

Stephen Foster Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826January 13, 1864), known also as "the father of American music", was an American composer known primarily for his parlour and minstrel music during the Romantic period. He wrote more than 200 songs, inc ...

(1826–1864). It was published by Firth, Pond & Co. of New York in 1854. Foster wrote the song with his estranged wife Jane McDowell in mind. The lyrics allude to a permanent separation. "Jeanie" was a notorious beneficiary of the

ASCAP boycott The ASCAP boycott was a 1941 boycott of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) by radio broadcasters, due to license fees. From another perspective, it was a boycott of radio broadcasters by ASCAP, "concerned about the unl ...

of 1941, a dispute caused by ASCAP increasing its licensing fees. During this period, radio broadcasters played only public-domain music or songs licensed by ASCAP rival BMI. According to a 1941 article in ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' magazine, "So often had BMI's Jeannie icWith the Light Brown Hair been played that she was widely reported to have turned grey."

Lyrics

Other versions

Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...

recorded the song on March 22, 1940, for Decca Records with

John Scott Trotter John Scott Trotter Jr. (June 14, 1908 – October 29, 1975), also known as "Uncle John", was an American arranger, composer and orchestra leader. Trotter was best known for conducting the John Scott Trotter Orchestra which backed singer and ...

and His Orchestra. Violinist

Jascha Heifetz Jascha Heifetz (; December 10, 1987) was a Russian-born American violinist. Born in Vilnius, he moved while still a teenager to the United States, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. He was a virtuoso since childhood. Fritz ...

transcribed the song for the violin and it became a signature piece for him for years. The transcription has been performed by many subsequent violinists.

In popular culture

STEPHEN_COLLINS_FOSTER_HOME_IN_HOBOKEN_NEW_JERSEY

The opening line was notably used as the basis for the title of the 1960s TV series ''

I Dream of Jeannie ''I Dream of Jeannie'' is an American fantasy sitcom television series, created by Sidney Sheldon that starred Barbara Eden as a sultry, 2,000-year-old genie and Larry Hagman, as an astronaut with whom she falls in love and eventually mar ...

''. Actress

Rhonda Fleming Rhonda Fleming (born Marilyn Louis; August 10, 1923 – October 14, 2020) was an American film and television actress and singer. She acted in more than 40 films, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, and became renowned as one of the most glamoro ...

as Madeline Danzeeger while playing a piano croons the opening verse in the 1950 Western film ''The Eagle and the Hawk''. In the 1956

Bugs Bunny Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character created in the late 1930s by Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) and voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his starring roles in the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merr ...

short ''

Broom-Stick Bunny ''Broom-Stick Bunny'' is a 1956 Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' short directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on February 25, 1956, and stars Bugs Bunny. The short is notable for being June Foray's first project for Warner Bros., which led ...

'', a play on the title is used in the closing lines: "Hello, air-raid headquarters? Well, you're not gonna believe this, but I just saw a genie with light brown hair chasing a flying sorceress." In the 1957 short ''

Ali Baba Bunny ''Ali Baba Bunny'' is a 1957 Warner Bros. ''Merrie Melodies'' short directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on February 9, 1957, and stars Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. In 1994, it was voted #35 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by m ...

'', Bugs disguises himself as a genie and says "Me genie, the light brown hare." Bugs would also, in other shorts, sing a variation: "I dream of Jeanie, she's a light brown hare" or otherwise make a reference to the song through

wordplay Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, phon ...

. Episode 12 of the first season of ''

The Phil Silvers Show ''The Phil Silvers Show'', originally titled ''You'll Never Get Rich'', is a sitcom which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1959. A pilot titled "Audition Show" was made in 1955, but it was never broadcast. 143 other episodes were broadcast – all half-a ...

'', title "The Singing Contest" involves his platoon very badly singing the same song throughout the show but a private (Bob Dixon as Pvt. Claude Brubaker) in the platoon who has an excellent singing voice saves their chances to win and they all end up in Florida for the Army final

In an episode of the 2001 miniseries '' Band of Brothers (TV miniseries), Band of Brothers'', "Bastogne", a few lines of the song's first stanza are sung loudly

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

by soldiers Joseph Liebgott, James Alley, and an unnamed soldier as they occupy a

foxhole Foxhole may refer to: * Foxhole, a type of defensive fighting position constructed in a military context * Foxholes, Hertford, an eastern suburb of Hertford * Foxholes, North Yorkshire, a village and civil parish in Northern England * Foxhole, Cor ...

shortly before being shelled by Nazi artillery. In the 1968

John Cassavetes John Nicholas Cassavetes ( ; December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989) was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. First known as a television and film actor, Cassavetes also helped pioneer American independent cinema, writing and direc ...

film ''

Faces The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affe ...

'', an important scene occurs which revolves around the singing of this song. The full title is used as the nickname for character Jeanie in ''

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip ''Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip'' is an American comedy-drama television series created and primarily written by Aaron Sorkin. The series was about the production of a live comedy series, similar to ''Saturday Night Live''. Produced by Warner Br ...

'', most notably several times in the 2006 episode "The Cold Open". A 1966 cartoon from ''

The Pink Panther Show ''The Pink Panther Show'' is a showcase of animated shorts produced by David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng between 1969 and 1978, starring the animated Pink Panther character from the opening credits of the live-action films. The series was pr ...

'' is entitled ''

Genie with the Light Pink Fur This is a list of the original 124 ''Pink Panther'' animated shorts produced between December 18, 1964, and February 1, 1980, by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises (DFE Films). 92 shorts were released theatrically. The first 62 entries appeared on Sa ...

''; it is about a magic lamp that turns the Pink Panther into a

genie Jinn ( ar, , ') – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources) – are invisible creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic myt ...

. In the 1940 film '' Beyond Tomorrow'' the character Jimmy Houston ( Richard Carlson) sings the entire song during a Christmas dinner with a band accompaniment. The opening line of the song is heard on a parlor piano in the 1998 television movie, '' The Love Letter''. A variation of the title is used for

Ellen Conford Ellen Conford (March 20, 1942 – March 20, 2015) was an author for children and young adults. Among her writings are the ''Annabel the Actress'' and ''Jenny Archer'' series. Her books have won the Best Book of the Year Citation, Best Book of the ...

's "Genie with the Light Blue Hair". The song is included on the 1998 Prima Voce album ''Songs and Ballads'' by

Richard Crooks Richard Alexander Crooks (June 26, 1900 – September 29, 1972) was an American tenor and a leading singer at the New York Metropolitan Opera. Biography He was born the second son of Alexander and Elizabeth Crooks on June 26, 1900 in Trenton, N ...

. The song figures prominently in an episode of the

Old Time Radio The Golden Age of Radio, also known as the old-time radio (OTR) era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the earl ...

show Quiet, Please title
"And Jeannie Dreams of Me"
which

October 17, 1948. The episode uses the song throughout and its title is a reversal of the song title which acts as a foreshadowing to the theme of the episode. An episode of '' The Chipmunks'' features the song, as Dave Seville sings it for his girlfriend named, of course, Jeannie...and then the Chipmunks sing a very silly and rude parody of the song, "Jeannie with the Green-Purple Hair", which offends Jeannie and annoys Dave, who retaliates by forcing the Chipmunks to sing the proper song over and over again until they have the lyrics memorized by heart.

References

{{Authority control 1854 songs American songs Parlor songs Songs written by Stephen Foster