The problem of dealing with archaic humor is that you often run into jokes which are amusing primarily if you know the context, and know something about the times. That joke about why Santa Claus won’t bring you a television because he has so much trouble with antennas on the roof isn’t quite the same nowadays; the same goes for stories which involve getting tangled in phone cords, cranking your car to start it, and being amazed you’re overdrawn when you still have checks left. (If I ever throw caution to the winds and do my columns on stand-up comedians of the past, called “Is This Still Funny?”, we will cover this issue more thoroughly.) The problem is compounded when you are dealing with a catchphrase (meme, for the young’uns) or, as we will discuss today, a line from a once-popular song.
Let us, for example, consider this line from Bert Williams, perhaps the greatest comedian of his generation, whose songs were so popular that their titles were lifted and reused for anything the lleast bit related…or totally unrelated. We have mentioned THIS classic before. The song itself was another one of his ditties about how tedious it is to be broke, and finances where everything is going out with nothing coming in. Seasickness postcards abound using this title, but the most notable theft…I mean homage, was when the Cascarets company took the phrase as the official slogan of its popular laxative. All these connections are lost, and the joke loses much of its punch, in a world which has forgotten both song and singer. (And even the laxative, for that matter.)
With this postcard you do get a fighting chance, since it gives you a few lines of the original, just enough to hint that what was meant by the original song is NOT about a loving couple as depicted here. You do need to assume that someone would refer to a man as Josie, but our ancestors didn’t feel we’d be spending a LOT of time on the gag, reckoning without a generation of bloggers.
The song referred to here is almost utterly forgotten, and I’m not terrifically surprised. I have heard two or three recordings of it without ever quite feeling an urge to sing along. But it was published in 1880, before audio was reliably recorded, and maybe there was something about it I’m missing. But in its day, it was a huge success, sung and enjoyed for a generation, producing dozens of jokes, many of which I have been seeing for some time, without seeing a connection.
The original song deals with a bar where one customer likes to hang out, argue with the other patrons, and mooch until the proprietor tells him to “Go Way Back and Sit Down”. The indigent soul has his day in the sun when he bets on a horse at a hundred to one, wins, and drives to the bar in an automobile (which makes me question the 1880 date for at least this verse.) Somehow, melody and lyrics were used as sources for parodies and occasional songs (songs for special occasions.) I can see where it would have excelled for, say, retirement parties, and in this postcard it becomes, I guess, a temperance message. But there is one very popular use I was aware of but did not understand, being ignorant of the song.
See, I had read this line about a dozen times, because a friend of mine collects miniature chamberpots. (Yeah? What are you doing with your life that’s so much better?) And many of these, several of which also have an eye painted inside the bottom, include this admonition. So I owe to this postcard the understanding of THAT old joke. I didn’t know I was yearning to know this but (and I use THAT word with some trepidity) I do know a little more about what happens when the song is over and the melody DOESN”T linger on.
Blogsy Babbles 