Sunday, June 19, 2011

"he twirled the dial of Bill's mailbox" and more

The Cape Cod Mystery (1931)

pg 53

"he twirled the dial of Bill's mailbox"
Although most people in the US may be familiar with post office boxes that open using a simple key, many post offices - typically in more rural areas, had Grecian-style combination locks, which used letters rather than numbers - starting in 1875 and ending in most areas by the 1980s - although some post offices may still have them.

(Note that this post office box door has been removed from its original setting and placed into a modern day box to make a bank. Note the combination has letters from A to J, and that the bottom of the door is made of glass so that people could see whether they had any mail or not before opening it.

"A special delivery stamp don't mean one thing in this place. We'd ought to got that delivered at the house last night."

Special Delivery stamps were used to expedite delivery of mail, normally at a higher cost. The exact nature of the service varied by postal service, but often included direct delivery to addressee upon arrival at the post office (instead of waiting for next regular delivery time). In many cases it would often be transported to the destination post office in a quicker manner.

Overall special delivery has been superseded by overnight mail and other express options.


"The 'red' came from from his leanings toward socialism and anarchism and all that, and Ivan came from that song that's on the other side of the Frankie and Johnnie record."
"Frankie and Johnny" (sometimes spelled "Frankie and Johnnie"; also known as "Frankie and Albert" or just "Frankie") is a traditional American popular song. It tells the story of a woman, Frankie, who finds that her man Johnny was "making love to" another woman and shoots him dead. Frankie is then arrested; in some versions of the song she is also executed.

The first published version of the music to "Frankie and Johnny" appeared in 1904, credited to and copyrighted by Hughie Cannon, the composer of "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey"; the piece, a variant version of whose melody is sung today, was titled "He Done Me Wrong" and subtitled "Death of Bill Bailey".[5]

Another variant of the melody, with words and music credited to Frank and Bert Leighton, appeared in 1908 under the title "Bill You Done Me Wrong"; this song was republished in 1912 as "Frankie and Johnny", this time with the words that appear in modern folk variations:

Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts
They had a quarrel one day,
Johnny he vowed that he would leave her
Said he was going away,
He's never coming home, etc.
Also:

Frankie took aim with her forty-four,
Five times with a rooty-toot-toot.
The 1912 "Frankie and Johnny" by the Leighton Brothers and Ren Shields also identifies "Nellie Bly" as the new girl to whom Johnny has given his heart. What has come to be the traditional version of the melody was also published in 1912, as the chorus to the song "You're My Baby", with music is attributed to Nat. D. Ayer.

The familiar "Frankie and Johnny were lovers" lyrics first appeared (as "Frankie and Albert") in On the Trail of Negro Folksongs by Dorothy Scarborough, published in 1925; a similar version with the "Frankie and Johnny" names appeared in 1927 in Carl Sandburg's The American Songbag.

Several students of folk music have asserted that the song long predates the earliest published versions; according to Leonard Feather in his Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz it was sung at the Siege of Vicksburg (1863) during the American Civil War and Sandburg said it was widespread before 1888, while John Jacob Niles reported that it emerged before 1830. The fact, however, that the familiar version does not appear in print before 1925 is "strange indeed for such an allegedly old and well-known song," according to music historian James J. Fuld, who suggests that it "is not so ancient as some of the folk-song writers would have one believe.

Since "Frankie and Johnny" is a traditional song there is no single definitive version of the lyrics. Several versions were collected by Robert Winslow Gordon. The refrain common to most versions is: "He was her man, but he was doing her wrong."

The song on the other side must have a character called "Ivan" for I've not been able to find a song with that title. Helen Morgan might have sung this version of Frankie and Johnny to which Taylor refers.

No comments:

Post a Comment