Old Sheet Music, Part 2

Among the beautiful lettering and illustration of the 100-year-old sheet music we recently unearthed in our basement, there were a number of ugly reminders of how sexism and racism permeated music at the time.

The sexism ranged from mild examples like this:


...as if music has a gender, to this bit of misogyny:


...with these lyrics:

Dear little girl, they call you a Vamp,
A flapper with up-to-date ways
You may shine brightly but just like a lamp
You'll burn out one of these days.

Then your old-fashioned sister
Will come into view,
With a husband and kiddies
But what about you?

You're the kind of a girl that men forget,
Just a toy to enjoy for a while,
For when men settle down they always get
An old-fashioned girl with an old-fashioned smile,
And you'll soon realize you're not so wise,
When the years bring you tears of regret,
When they play "Here comes the bride"
You'll stand outside, just a girl that men forget.

Wallflower girl, now dry all those tears,
For you won't be left all alone
Some day you'll find yourself upon a throne,
Queen of a sweet little home

And you gay little flapper
You'll live and you'll learn,
When you've gone down the pathway
That has no return.

You're the kind of a girl that men forget,
Just a toy to enjoy for a while,
For when men settle down they always get
An old-fashioned girl with an old-fashioned smile,
And you'll soon realize you're not so wise,
When the years bring you tears of regret,
When they play "Here comes the bride"
You'll stand outside, just a girl that men forget.

Lyrics and music by Al Dubin, Fred Rath, and Joe Garren.

Here's a close-up of the weeping flapper left outside the church:


That's mild, though, compared to the racism I saw in multiple songs. No one will be surprised that there was at least one example of blackface minstrelsy in music from this era. In this particular pile, it was Eddie Cantor:


Sorry to reproduce that ugliness. For a new, brief take on the history of minstrelsy and how it fits into current music, check out the article from last weekend's 1619 Project in the New York Times Magazine: "For centuries, black music, forged in bondage, has been the sound of complete artistic freedom. No wonder everybody is always stealing it." It starts on page 60 of this open-access PDF.

The last piece I'll include isn't in the minstrel tradition, but is more in the way of romanticized subordination:


Here's a close-up of "mammy" through the cabin window:


... and the lyrics, full of denigrating dialect and deprecated vocabulary like "coon" and "darky" and "pickaninny":

Close yoh dreamy eyes an' lay yoh head on Mammy's breast,
Stahs ah in de skies an' birds ah sleepin' in de nest,
Night-time is heah, honey don't feah,
Yoh on Mammy's ahm;

Great big yallah moon a shinin' down upon de stream,
Mammy's little coon will soon be floatin' in a dream,
Slumba a-while, mah honey chile,
Yoh Mammy will keep yoh from hahm,

Go to sleep, wiv yoh head on yoh Mammy's breast
Cause Mammy knows her dusky rose is tiahed an' longin' fo' rest;
Go to sleep while the shadders creep,
Des dream away till break ob day

An doan yoh eben peep
In dah sugah cane de owl's a hootin' to de moon,
Down along de lane I heah de darkies softly croon,

Now hush-a-bye, honey, don't cry,
But des close yoh eyes;
When de mawrin' come an' all de birds begin to cheep
Mammy's sugar plum a goin' to waken from his sleep

Des like a flow'h kissed by de show'h
when rain drops come down from de sky
Yoh Mammy's pickaninny, de finest an' de best,
De pride of old Virginny

So slumbah, my honey, an' rest
Go to sleep, Go to sleep.

Those stellar lyrics are by J. Will Callahan, music by Lee. S. Roberts. (Callahan also wrote the lyrics to a song called "Ching Chong." Let's guess what that's about.)

These are what passed for popular music... popular with white people, anyway.