Uploaded October 2020 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
Day 212 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
Sandburg writes: "We present here lines written by Andy Lee, a pen name of W. W. Delaney, as published in the Delaney Song Book No. 33. Our guess may be that his "Crazy Song to the Air of 'Dixie'" was the beginning of the highbrow folk song perpetrated and perpetuated by Sinclair Lewis, George Sterling and others.
"The text of it in full is here, so that each individual singer can figure it out for himself. Some of the logic is on the order of that of the member of Congress who expostulated, "Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat. I see him floating in the air. But I will nip him in the bud." Nor is it in tone above or below that of the orator addressing the House of Commons regarding certain thieves in high places, saying, "Sir, put these men on an uninhabited island and they would not be there an hour before they would have their hands in the pockets of the naked savages." ...
"With but slight practice any of the verses will go to the tune of Dixie. And they are nearly as silly if read instead of sung."
There is a recording by Ernest Stoneman in 1925.
Day 212 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
Sandburg writes: "We present here lines written by Andy Lee, a pen name of W. W. Delaney, as published in the Delaney Song Book No. 33. Our guess may be that his "Crazy Song to the Air of 'Dixie'" was the beginning of the highbrow folk song perpetrated and perpetuated by Sinclair Lewis, George Sterling and others.
"The text of it in full is here, so that each individual singer can figure it out for himself. Some of the logic is on the order of that of the member of Congress who expostulated, "Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat. I see him floating in the air. But I will nip him in the bud." Nor is it in tone above or below that of the orator addressing the House of Commons regarding certain thieves in high places, saying, "Sir, put these men on an uninhabited island and they would not be there an hour before they would have their hands in the pockets of the naked savages." ...
"With but slight practice any of the verses will go to the tune of Dixie. And they are nearly as silly if read instead of sung."
There is a recording by Ernest Stoneman in 1925.
