[78-L] Hell to pay

David Lennick dlennick at sympatico.ca
Tue Jan 25 19:49:42 PST 2011


Jolson on Naxos got into 1918 but didn't Tell That to the Marines. Missed it by 
that much. One day I'll get to do the complete Jolsons..

dl

On 1/25/2011 9:17 PM, Sammy Jones wrote:
> Not a "hell," but a "damn":
>
> If you think you'll sink our new boats/
> With your damned old U-boats/
> Tell that to the Marines!
>
> Al Jolson Columbia recording of "Tell That to the Marines" from around 1918
> (sorry, I don't have the discographical info at hand).  It's on the Pearl
> Music From the New York Stage, Vol. 4. CD.
>
> dl--did your Jolson releases get up that far?
>
> Also, in "College Medley," Jack Norworth almost says "hell" (in fact, I
> thought he did until I just listened again):
>
> We can't swim ourselves/
> So how in the he--world can we help you?
>
> That's also from Pearl's Music from the New York Stage (Vol. 2, this time).
>
> Connecting this topic with acoustic disc playback speed, I have Norwood's
> "College Medley" on a 12-inch purple label Victor, and it seems to pitch
> down around 71.  According to the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor
> recordings, this side was recorded on either March 7, or April 4, 1910
> (matrix B-8703, take 1 or 2), which seems awful late for Victor to be
> pitched so low.  In my experience, recordings of this period seem to settle
> in the 74-76 rpm range.
>
> Sammy Jones
>
>
> Taylor Bowie wrote:
>> Yeah and "She Looks Like Helen Brown" is another one.I guess what I'm
>> looking for are lyrics which actually use "Hell" as an oath or
>> profanity, and not as an actual place or hidden within a pun. So by my
>> newly determined standard, none o' these earlier ones would fit except
>> for the Spinach tune.T
>
> _______________________________________________
> 78-L mailing list
> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l
>
>



More information about the 78-L mailing list