I'm My Own Grandpa... (was re: satirical old-time lyrics)

[John Lupton]

Manfred responded to my post, but apparently can't post directly to the group,
so I'm relaying this for him:

Return-Path: 10151...@compuserve.com
Posted-Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 08:45:33 -0500 (EST)
Date: 04 Feb 96 08:40:51 EST
From: Manfred Helfert <10151...@compuserve.com>
To: John Lupton <jlu...@sas.upenn.edu>
Subject: Satirical, ironic, etc.
Content-Length: 2559

From: Manfred Helfert
From: jlu...@sas.upenn.edu (John Lupton)
Subject: Re: Satirical, ironic, or tongue in cheek old-time

>>How about "I'm My Own Grandpa?"

>Lonzo and Oscar, I think, followed shortly by Homer & Jethro. I could be
>wrong, though. My recollection is the copyright on "Grandpa" is 1947, well
>after Miller's death in '44. Yeah, it is a Tin Pan Alley song, written by Moe
>Jaffe and Dwight Latham.

Horstman's book, Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy, Pocket Book 1976, confirms
authorship and copyright date mentioned in your post.

Dwight Latham about the background of the song:
Back in the early dates of radio in the thirties, I had a very successful group
called The Jesters performing three nights a week on NBC. Our specialty was
novelty songs and bits of spoken humor. In reading a book of anecdotes and
sayings by Mark Twain, I came across a paragraph wherein he proved it was
possible for a man to become his own grandpa by a certain succession of events
beginning with the premise that if the man married a widow with a grown-up
daughter and his father married the daughter, etc. etc., he would eventually
become his own grandpa. The idea seemed funny enough to repeat on the air, and
sure enough, the response was very good. Later Moe Jaffe and I decided to expand
the basic idea and set it as a song (Horstman, p. 112)

The earliest recorded version of "I'm My Own Grandpa" in my collection is from a
set of radio transcripts by Edward Leroy (Blue Grass Roy) Freeman aka The
Kentucky Korn Kracker, recorded at WJJD, Chicago, IL, in 1940 for sponsor
Hamlin's Wizard Oil who placed these programs over a number of stations,
including WHAM, Rochester, and stations in New Orleans, Wheeling, and Lincoln
(reissued as Old Homestead OHCS 106 in 1977). The tune seems to be slightly
different from the later versions mentioned in this thread, possibly there are
also lyrical variations (will have to check that).

Is it possible that Blue Grass Roy learned the song from one of The Jesters'
NBC Broadcasts?
Does the song appear in any of his song folios, like Blue Grass Roy's Collection
of Mountain and Home Songs?
What is the exact Mark Twain source mentioned by Latham?

As I somehow do not seem to be able to post to this newsgroup (have to have my
software examined and tuned by a friend), feel free to post this in my name if
you feel it is of interest to other subscribers.

Also, my favorite tongue-in-cheek oldtime song would be Carson Robison's Life
Gits Tee-jus, Don't It?

Oldtimey thoughts from Germoney
Manfred

********************************************************************************
John Lupton, SAS Comm & Network Svcs, University of Pennsylvania
"Rural Free Delivery", WVUD-FM 91.3, Newark, Delaware
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jlupton/rfd.html
Brandywine Friends of Old Time Music
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jlupton/bfotm.html
********************************************************************************
The University of Pennsylvania: a bar with a $25,000 cover charge...

[BILL ELLIS]

Fiddlin' John Carson recorded a song called "Papa's Billy Goat" in 1923,
which included this stanza:

Then I acted an old fool, married me a widow
And the widow had a daughter and her name was Maude
Father being a widower married her daughter
And now my daddy is my own son-in-law.

Uncle Dave Macon picked up the same song and stanza in one of his first
recordings the following year. Neither one take the scenario any
farther, but it stands to reason that if the narrator and the widow and
Maude and the father both have issue, then the same results apply.

BE

[BanjoRamse]

I remember having an album of silly sing along songs as a child (33 1/3
rpm) and this song was on there along with some other favorites as "John
Jacob Jinglehimerschmidt" , "The Name Game" , "Yellow Bird" , "Let the
Sunshine In", and some more that I have forgotten. I'll have to ask my
mother if that album is stashed somewhere.

Patty
banjo...@aol.com