Re: lyric question

Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 08:57:49 -0600
Newsgroups: alt.banjo
Size: 1,426 bytes

In article <email-address-deleted>,
email-address-deleted says...
> In Stephen Fosters song "Angeline Baker"
> the chorus ends
> "she left me hear to weep a tear and beat an old jaw bone"
>
> Anyone know what "beat and old jawbone"
> refers too?
From "A Treasury of Stephen Foster" (Random House, 1946, notes by John
Tasker Howard):
"Angelina Baker" is a typical minstrel song, in pseudo-Negro dialect. In
the last line of its chorus it refers to the "jaw-bone" which was an
instrument the end-men of a minstrel show shook like a tambourine. It
was made from the actual jawbone of a horse or ass. When the bone was
thoroughly dried the teeth became so loose that they rattled and
produced a sound as loud as that of a pair of castanets.
In every sense a minor Foster song, "Angelina Baker" is nonetheless
representative of the nonsense song in which Foster was so successful.
One of his greatest contributions to minstrelsy was his refinement of
the humor of its songs. His words were as nonsensical as other ditties,
but he made an art product of a type of lyric which had belonged
exclusively to the bar room. It was not so much a matter of Foster's
refinements of words and music, but an individuality of style.
Foster's earnings on this song were pathetically low. In the course of
seven years, it netted him a total of $16.87.
See: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=6169