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Subject: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Charlie2 Date: 08 Sep 00 - 04:54 PM As a child I listened to this song with wonder. As an adult I've been singing it in my shows for years. So what do you guys think? Is he Real or just a legend?? Related threads:-Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: catspaw49 Date: 08 Sep 00 - 04:59 PM Personally I wonder how many threads we're going to run on this? This must be about 7 or 8 and it ain't all that great a song!(:<)) Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: RWilhelm Date: 08 Sep 00 - 05:02 PM I don't care |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: SINSULL Date: 08 Sep 00 - 05:07 PM Charlie, This is the first thread I have seen on it. Ignore Spaw. He has a busier than usual weekend at the funnyfarm coming up and he's bitter because no one will empty bedpans. I thought Jimmy was just a nonsense refrain but now I will have to check the previous threads to be sure. I have NOTHING planned this weekend. Mary (smiling) |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: catspaw49 Date: 08 Sep 00 - 06:15 PM There are now 4 previous threads with links that have been refreshed for your perusal. Enjoy Sins!!! Spaw Hi, Spaw. I deleted all the refresh messages and put links in the first message of each thread instead. That way, I'm hoping that any new discussion will be confined to one thread, instead of split. Your refresh messages helped me find everything. Thanks. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: SINSULL Date: 08 Sep 00 - 06:19 PM Bless you Spaw. Give the boys a hug for me. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,ami_iss@netvision.net.il Date: 23 Jan 03 - 07:34 PM If anyone is still interested - I believe the original lyrics were "Gimme Crack Corn" - which can be seen on some song titles and listings of 50 years ago. "Give me Crack Corn and I don't care" was a refrain that apparently meant "I am so unhappy I don't care what I eat" (cracked corn was chicken feed, I suspect). |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Cluin Date: 23 Jan 03 - 07:40 PM "Jimmy crack corn and I don't care" Well, that's a hell of an attitude, eh? Dennis Miller |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Cluin Date: 23 Jan 03 - 07:44 PM Guest, ami iss@yabbadabbaflibiteejibbit, I don't think the singer would have been unhappy. His master was "gone away" and he wouldn't have to follow him around on foot and brush the flies off his honky ass any more. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,Q Date: 23 Jan 03 - 08:43 PM The title on the 1846 sheet music was "Jim Crack Corn or The Blue Tail Fly. Sheet music in the Levy Collection. See threads at top for explanations. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,Q Date: 23 Jan 03 - 09:12 PM Originals are lacking from the DT. One is a children's version and the other is from a 1960s group with the "gimme" chorus. I have a rotary corn "sheller" which is supposed to shell dry corn but in part cracks the kernels as well- don't know if it is set right or not- Always assumed that this was what Jim was doing, cracking corn, but on a bigger scale. Picked it up at a farm sale years ago. One of those treasures, but my wife says "why the Hell...." |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Richie Date: 23 Jan 03 - 09:20 PM I thought "Jimmy Crack Corn" was slang for "gimme cracked corn" or corn liquor. "Gimme crack corn and I don't care" -Richie |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,Q Date: 23 Jan 03 - 09:28 PM Gimmie and Jimmy lacking from original versions. Addressed as Jim rather than the informal Jimmie, he would have said "Please pass the demijohn of distillate manufactured under lunar conditions." |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Coyote Breath Date: 24 Jan 03 - 01:26 AM Listen to the version on Mike Seeger's CD Southern Banjo Sounds. No massa but a "shitepoke". Strange indeed are the turnings of life. CB |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Richie Date: 24 Jan 03 - 06:20 AM Guest Q, Originally I guess it was "Gim crack corn" short for "Gimme". Stay away from the demijohn which has also been (heard) printed a number of different ways. I thought this was common knowledge that Jim (Jimmy)Crack Corn was a mishearing of "Gimme Crack Corn" but I can't remember where I learned this. -Richie |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Bugsy Date: 24 Jan 03 - 07:19 AM But if Jimmy Cracked Corn and nobody cared, why did they write a song about it??? CHeers Bugsy |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Richie Date: 24 Jan 03 - 09:40 AM I know of at least one group and I've also seen printed lyrics that sing, "Hot Corn, Cold Corn bring along a Jimmy John (instead of demijohn)." This is of couse a different song. It certainly seems reasonable that Emmett misheard the chorus, which he probably got from African-American sources and instead wrote: CHORUS: Jim crack corn I don't care, Jim crack corn I don't care, Jim crack corn I don't care, Old Massa gone away. Gimme cracked corn certainly makes sense. Bring out the jug 'cause Massa gone. -Richie |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,Q Date: 24 Jan 03 - 02:42 PM Richie, cracking corn was a normal part of farm life in those days. Emmett should have been aware of it. But that brings up a question. Where did the phrase "Cracking corn" for telling jokes or tall tales come from? Can't find anything in my slang books. I heard that in Illinois-Indiana when I was living there in the 1950s. Did that usage go back to Emmett's time? |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Richie Date: 24 Jan 03 - 10:15 PM Here's another take from the net: The Civil War song, Jimmy Cracked Corn, was one of Abe Lincoln's favorite songs! However, in the song, Jimmy wasn't really cracking corn. He was sleeping, and "cracking corn" was another term for snoring. Corny jokes for you Q: Q: Why did the corn stalk get mad at the farmer? A: Because he kept pulling its ears! Q: What's a corn farmer's favorite breed of dog? A: A Husk-y! Q: Why shouldn't you tell secrets on a farm? A: Because the corn has ears, the potatoes have eyes, and the beanstalk. Here's the Site: Click here -Richie |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,Q Date: 24 Jan 03 - 10:25 PM And beware rape! (Canola in PC) |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Fiolar Date: 25 Jan 03 - 05:48 AM According to "The Cassel Dictionary of Slang" "Crack-Corn" referred to White People and originally meant the White natives of Kentucky. It was apparently a variation of "corncracker" which meant a poor white farmer and was apparently applied to the natives of Florida, Georgia, Kentucky or Tennessee possibly because of their dependance on corn or maize. Corn in the British Isles refers to wheat, oats or barley as distinct from the American meaning. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,Q Date: 25 Jan 03 - 04:26 PM "I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless bunch of rascals on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode. G. Cochrane, 1766, in "Letters," 27 June. OED The term comes from the Scottish-northern English word crack (crake), meaning boasting, which has been used in that sense from 1460 in print. See OED, 1971 and later eds. Georgia apparntly was first called the Cracker State in print in 1808, in "Balance," Verses by a Cracker Planter. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,jlbaker@qx.net Date: 02 Feb 03 - 07:48 PM Would anyone like to guess that the old master has gone to his just rests with or without the aid of the fly smacker which caused the poor horse a fright when he got a sound whacker along with the blue tail fly bite whihc in most tender of spots did light..At the wake the help could lament with a little of the corn in the jug which old marse sure loved to lug taking a mite here and there for ease of his lil or big ailments...cept for that old gout which damn right plumb wore him out so he sure could curse and shout even when there were them fine ladies about.Now ofcourse,he is in the grave so here now be sure a sip for me you save.... |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Mark Clark Date: 04 Mar 03 - 03:42 PM I really like Fiolar's reference to “corncracker.” One could imagine it giving rise to the modern pejorative “cracker” for white people. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: CRANKY YANKEE Date: 04 Mar 03 - 07:12 PM I always thought that it was, "Jimcrack o' corn and I don't care" "Jimcrack" is ameasure of whiskey, A Jimcrack of corn (whiskey) I have been led to understand that it was the telling of a (justied, in my mind) homicide. A slave killing his master (hooray) and getting away with it by blaming the "Blue Tailed Fly" |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,NP Date: 31 May 03 - 05:31 PM No, guys, the word 'gimcrack' is American slang that means something gaudy but of little value. 'Gimcrack' corn is just bad crop, because ole massa is not there to supervise the slaves anymore. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,Elfmonkey Date: 02 Nov 03 - 05:24 PM I always thought that Jimmy was a corrution of gimme. SO, it would be give me cracked corn... I wouldn't know though, I wasn't around in the 1800's |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: SussexCarole Date: 02 Nov 03 - 06:19 PM Sang Jimmy Crack Corn while trying my hand at cracking corn at Mount Vernon on USA visit. I hadn't realised what the expression meant before then! |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Joybell Date: 03 Nov 03 - 08:15 AM As I mentioned in another thread about this song - I was taught, by my father (1897-1955) that "Jimmy crack corn" was about the crow - called Jimmy/Jim/ Crow - cracking open corn to eat. He told me that Jim or Jimmy was the name given to the crow as Bossy was the name for the cow etc. I have wondered if the chorus of "Jimmy Crack Corn" was taken from a crow-scaring song from the British Isles. It is very similiar to other songs of that type. Children were given the job of crow-scaring up until the early part of the 20th century and some of their songs have been collected. These children would not care, of course, if birds cracked and ate the corn when the master was away. Gimme and Jimmy sound very different even to me and according to my partner (graduate student of linguistics) - in the Germanic languages the voiced palatal stop [g] is not known to become an affricate [j] before a front vowel. The supposed transition of gimme to Jimmy is unsupported by any evidence. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Joybell Date: 03 Nov 03 - 04:30 PM A little more admitedly unsupported evidence for the crow-scaring song theory. I've just returned from a folk festival in the Central Victorian (Aus) town where my family have been since the 1840s. The tunes still played by the older musicians are the songs made popular by the American and British minstrels back in the 19th century. It was here that my father learned "Jimmy Crack Corn" well before any of the discussions, mentioned above, about the word "Gimme". We kids, in Australia, growing up in the 1940s never questioned the phrase "Jimmy crack corn and I don't care" we understood that it was about birds cracking and eating corn. One of the versions of this song - (one of the above threads) is in fact all about birds in the cornfield. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 03 Nov 03 - 05:01 PM Carole of Sussex has one of the two most likely explanations. Cracking corn was one of those onerous tasks on any farm where corn was raised or used. The other is the old meaning of talk or idle discussion, and may be from the word craik, crake, craic- to boast or brag, or engage in idle talk. The word is Old English, but has survived in Scotland and Ireland (there is a thread on this). It may survive as "crack wise," formerly (locally still?) used in the States. Crake, imitative of the grating sound of some black birds, is used for the call of rails, crows, etc. Old Norse Kraka is a crow or raven. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Joybell Date: 03 Nov 03 - 05:14 PM Q, Then is the bird referred to as a "Corncrake" a corn-cracker? Is that where its name comes from? "Said the corncrake to the crow, Down to the cornfild let us go...." Does this add weight to the idea that this song is about birds cracking corn? |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Joybell Date: 03 Nov 03 - 06:37 PM Just did my homework. Seems a corncrake is a type of rail. The name is thought to come from its call and the fact that it lives among tall grasses including crop grasses. It doesn't "crack" corn. It still seems to me that the songwriter was playing around with the words "crack" and "corn" and singing about birds in cornfields. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 03 Nov 03 - 06:43 PM Corncrake, Prex pratensis, a summer bird in the British Isles ate what is called corn there- wheat, rye, barley, etc. Not the maize of America, which is corn in the USA. The "crack" comes from the sound it makes. The corncrake is a Eurasian bird, not American. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Joybell Date: 03 Nov 03 - 07:14 PM That's ok though Q, If the chorus of "Jimmy Crack Corn" began as a British crow-scaring song, as I am proposing, then the corncrake and the crow, (and also the sheldrick/shellduck and the crane) all fit quite comfortably there together. Here in Australia, incidently we knew that the word "corn" didn't refer to just the American variety. British songs about John Barleycorn and the like were as popular as the American minstrel songs. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 03 Nov 03 - 07:31 PM I think that any idea that Jim Crack Corn began as a crow-scaring song is nonsense. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Joybell Date: 03 Nov 03 - 08:02 PM Well that's telling me isn't it! No more Mr Nice Guy then? Please note though, Q that I have always been quite open about my sources of information. I have always made it quite clear that my idea is a hunch. I also wish to note again that it is the CHORUS of this song that seems to fit best with my idea. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,the old pooperoo Date: 03 Nov 03 - 08:08 PM so Q THINKS that Joybell's idea is a lot of nonsense! and this from the correspondent who attacked the rest of us for saying I THINK! (see thread on degradation of language). Well, if my porous old memory serves me right, Joybell presented her ideas as a hypothesis, and supplied her very good reasons for doing so. if correspondent Q has reasons for thinking otherwise, we breathlessly await them. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: LadyJean Date: 04 Nov 03 - 12:55 AM I believe I posted in another thread, a quote from a southern girl during the civil war, who wrote; "My only good dress is like Jim Crack Corn's coat, 'made from mammy's old one'. Little diary, I fear you know nothing of Mother Goose". Apparently, he was a character in a nursery rhyme. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Joybell Date: 04 Nov 03 - 05:12 AM Lady Jean, What a wonderful quote. Even if all of our little pieces of information don't end up leading us anywhere, it's the journey that is so interesting, I believe. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: catspaw49 Date: 04 Nov 03 - 08:46 AM Yeah, unless the journey ends in "Never-Never Land." Considering the southern roots and slave terminology used in this song and discussed at length by many of us in other threads, I gotta' believe that the idea that this song has anything to do with scaring birds is completely beyond comprehension (read: "fucked up"). Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Snuffy Date: 04 Nov 03 - 09:01 AM The plantation origins of the song as a whole are clear enough, Spaw. But Joybell is saying maybe the chorus was taken from an older bird-scaring song which may have crossed the Atlantic at some time in the past. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: catspaw49 Date: 04 Nov 03 - 09:40 AM Okay Snuff, I'll buy that......sorta'.........Put a temporary hold on the "fucked up"....... Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Amos Date: 04 Nov 03 - 11:57 AM Whyncha just put it back where you got it, Spaw?? A |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,Hillbilly Joe Date: 04 Nov 03 - 03:10 PM I'm not sure we're not talking about two different songs (i.e., Jimmy Crack Corn & Blue Tail Fly) that, since they share the same, or similar tune have been confused by cross-over versing. My grandfather, who was born (1885)and raised on the mainland behind Pawley's Island, South Carolina, sang 'Jimmy Crack Corn' at every family gathering through the 1950's. The version he sang was very similar to Ruth C. Seeger's animal version. He said he learned the song from the local 'Darkies' when he was a kid. He must have known twenty or so verses and never included any of the Blue Tail Fly verses. Of the ones he use to sing, I only remember the following two: Down in the foul house, on my knees A'listenin' to those poulets sneese Duck chaw tobacco and the goose drink wine Tha Turkey danced a jig on tha sweet potato vine (coda) So said the bull frog to the crane I wish that the Lord would send some rain The creek's all muddy and the ponds all dry If it wasn't for the tadpools, we'd all die (coda) Other that saying where he learned, he never speculated on it's origins. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Joybell Date: 04 Nov 03 - 04:48 PM Thank you all for the interest and the input. Hillbilly Joe yes my husband was born and raised in the Midwest and he recalls many verses, some of them bawdy, for this song. There is no doubt that we are talking about several songs here, but as Amos pointed out and as I have several times, it's the chorus that they share that I am wondering about here. I should also note that the job of crow-scaring was also well-known in rural America up until the 20th Century. Also these songs had, by the 19th Century, become known as "nursery rhymes" after they were collected by Halliwell. There is nothing exclusivly Southern about the language of the chorus. British crow-scaring songs have lines about "Master" as do many other British songs. Some talk about birds being allowed to have some corn - until Master comes around. I also wish to note that I personally have a deep love of old songs that have been developed and changed in the American South and for hundreds of old songs born in America. Something very special happened there. I am just interested in threads and connections and patterns in old songs and in singing the songs. I don't dispute that this song, whatever its roots, now sounds and feels American. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Nov 03 - 06:49 PM This has been gone over before, but some people like to travel in circles. It is reminiscent of all of the nonsense written about "Ring Around the Rosie." I won't go as far as Spaw, but he ain't far off. Hillbilly Joe, the line about a chicken sneezing is in Talley. The second verse is printed in almost exactly that form in Thomas Talley (Negro Folk Rhymes), but from the song "Sheep Shell Corn." A couple of verses: De ram blow de horn an' de sheep shell co'n, An' he sen' it to de mill by de buck-eyed Whippoorwill. Ole Joe's dead an' gone but his Hant blows de horn, An' his hound howls still from de top o' dat hill. De fish-hawk said unto Mistah Crane, I wishes to de Lawd dat you'd sen' a little rain, Fer de water's all muddy, an' de creek's gone dry: If it 'twasn't fer de tadpoles we'd all die. The only difference is that a fish-hawk is substituted for the frog. There are many of these animal rhymes; they were the basis of some of the stories by Joel Chandler Harris (thanks to him some were preserved that otherwise would have been lost) and were substituted in several different songs. However, every attempt shoud be made to preserve the variants. Crow-scaring songs. Malcolm Douglas came up with the only one so far, date uncertain beyond the 19th c. Caddow, cadow was in use in the 19th c. and may survive locally. Both the UK song "Blue Tail Fly" and the American one have been posted, There is no similarity other than the title. Blue Tail Fly and Jim Crack Corn were used in minstrel shows as separate songs, and also were united by the performers. Both seem to have originated about the same time. Separate and joined versions have been posted. There is speculation as to whether the minstrel or the plantation or Negro versions of these songs were first. Only anecdotal evidence of their existence before the minstrels has been advanced. There is lots of "I think" but some proof is needed. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Joybell Date: 05 Nov 03 - 04:46 PM Q According to Opie, "Numeruous scaring songs are known" (I'm sorry if this is too inexact for you but I use their words.) I began a thread about them to separate all this a bit. I'll post the other ones that they have there. I don't have access to Halliwell's book of Nursery Rhymes which contains a number of crow-scaring songs. As soon as I can get to a library I'll post them on the relevant thread for anyone who's interested. My original intention in proposing my idea was to seek information not to point score. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: GUEST,petr Date: 05 Nov 03 - 05:00 PM I was under the impression it was a Burl Ives song. not sure where I heard that. |
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Subject: RE: Jimmy Crack Corn - Man or Myth From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 05 Nov 03 - 05:26 PM The American crow scaring song was the rattle of pellets from a shotgun blast. |
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