Here is some more information on the song:
"Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay" is a vaudeville and music hall song, copyrighted by Henry J. SayersLottie Collins in London music halls in 1892. and first performed in 1891. The song was best known in the version sung by
The song's authorship was disputed for some years, and was the subject of a lawsuit in the 1930s. It originally appeared credited to Sayers, who was the manager of a minstrel troupe, and was sung by Mamie Gilroy in a minstrel farce comedy in 1891. However, Sayers later stated that he had not written the song, but had heard it performed in the 1880s by a black singer, Mama Lou, in a well-known St. Louis brothel run by "Babe" Connors. The 1930s lawsuit decided that the tune and the refrain were in the public domain.[1]
Sayers gave the song to Lottie Collins, who worked up a routine around it, with new words by Richard Morton and a new arrangement by Angelo A. Asher, and performed it to great acclaim in London in 1892 in a revue, Miss Helyett. According to reviews at the time, Collins delivered the suggestive verses with deceptive demureness, before launching into the lusty refrain and her celebrated "kick dance", a kind of cancan in which, according to one reviewer, "she turns, twists, contorts, revolutionizes, and disports her lithe and muscular figure into a hundred different poses, all bizarre...."[1]
Around 1914 Joe Hill wrote a version which tells the tale of how poor working conditions can lead workers into "accidentally" causing their machinery to have mishaps.
The tune is widely recognizable and has been used for numerous other songs, including children's camp songs and military ballads from the early 20th century. According to enotes.com, it is Nonsense march song.[2] It was used for the theme song to the show Howdy Doody, and more recently by the Mariachi-tuned Dilly Sisters on the 1960s children variety show The Banana Splits.
A 1945 British film of the same name describes the history of music hall theatre.
No comments:
Post a Comment