1904

31. Raymond Hitchcock

Aint It Funny What A Difference Just A Few Hours Make

Written by Henry M Blossom & Alfred G Robyn

Raymond Hitchcock was born in Auburn, New York in 1865 and was a silent film actor and stage actor who appeared in many Broadway musical comedies and operas from 1898. His role in the show as Abijah Booze, the American Consul in Puerto Plata in The Yankee Consul in 1904 provided him with the song Aint It Funny What A Difference Just A Few Hours Make. This is a man who has to get up early in the morning and feels terrible, but as the day goes along, he feels much better. He calls himself a clerk but as the American consul it was possible in his powers to alter his hours of work, as he sings, as a businessman I know I’d make an awful hit, if they’d let me work when I am wide awake, if some system could be found just to turn the time around, ain’t it funny what a difference just a few hours make, all my clothes look mighty seedy in the day, all the wrinkles and the grease spots fade away, then I shake my tired feelings, and I find my friends. Hitchcock does sing the song but he lapses into speaking the lines more often that sticking to the melody. This was the original and a more successful version was recorded by Billy Murray but the lyrics were far too slowly delivered for his usual style so the Raymond Hitchcock version is the one that stood out.

32. Bob Roberts

The Ghost That Never Walked

Written by Jean Schwartz & William Jerome

Bob Roberts didn’t wish to frighten people, but he was a sad old ghost of a troupe that disbanded in Peoria, I’m the ghost of a bunch that were only out for glory, a ghost of an actor, an industry in which money never talked as they never got paid. He asked the listeners, don’t shake with fear as I draw near, I’m just a harmless creature, don’t think me wild I’m meek and mild for weakness is my feature, please have a little pity and listen to my ditty, I’m not the great Elijah who heals in Zion City. The song was only one minute forty-two seconds although Jean Schwartz & William Jerome had written a second verse which Bob never sang, elaborating more on his misfortune with money, especially on salary day 

33. Arthur Collins   

Hannah Wont You Open That Door                                      

Written by Andrew B Sterling & Harry Von Tilzer

Bill Collins, playing the role of the errant husband Bill Johnson who has been thrown out of his house by his wife Hannah, Bill’s at the door chilled to the core, please baby Hannah take me back once more, here in the snow I’m shiv’ring so, my bones are rattling in breezes that blow, Hannah be nice I’m cold as ice, why don’t you answer me babe I’ve knocked twice, I’m hungry too smell a chicken stew, Hannah I loves only you, oh Hannah Hannah Hannah won’t you open that door, Hannah Hannah won’t you change your manner, this is old Bill Johnson, don’t you love him no more, and I pleads ’cause I need that place behind the stove that I used to have before, good lord won’t you open that door. Hannah obviously considered that what Bill had done was so bad, she was not going to open the door and take him back. Let me in please honest I’ll freeze, I’ll surely catch the gripp and I’m starting to sneeze, please stop that rhyme gal it’s a crime, singing that song about old summer time, frost bit-ten feet nose like a beet, I’m frozen sure Honey I want some heat, I loves you still I always will, open the door Babe it’s Bill. The song predated the Count Basie song Open The Door Richard by almost half a century but was on the same theme.   

34. Billy Murray  

I Can’t Do This Sum

Written by Glen Macdonough & Victor Herbert 

Billy Murray sang the song I Can’t Do This Sum from the operetta Babes In Toyland and I guess it would have proved difficult for anybody, he sang if a steamship weighed ten thousand tons and sailed five thousand miles with a cargo large of overshoes and carving knives and files, if the mates were almost six feet high and the boss near the same, would you subtract or multiply to find the captains name, put down six and carry two gee but this is hard to do, you can think and think till your brains are numb, I don’t care what teacher says I can’t do this sum. In the show, there were five verses all with equally impossible sums, but Billy Murray only sang verses one and four, if a woman had an English pug ten children and a cat, and she tried in seven hours to find a forty dollar flat with naught but sunny outside rooms, in a neighbourhood of tone, how old would those ten children be before they found a home. The verses that he didn’t sing on the recording included one about Harold on a date, if Harold took sweet Imogene with him one eve to dine, and ordered half the bill of fare with cataracts of wine, if the bill of fare were thirteen ninety five and poor Harold had but four, how many things would Harold strike before he struck the floor and a riddle about a grocer and Willie, if a pound of prunes cost thirteen cents at half past one today, and the grocer is so bald he wears a dollar five toupee, and if with every pound of tea he will give two cut glass plates, how soon would Willie break his face on his new roller skates. Could you do these sums.

35. Harry MacDonough  

In Zanzibar

Will D Cobb & Gus Edwards

Zanzibar is an island off the coast of Tanzania in the Indian Ocean and around the year 1904 it was exotic sounding and therefore prime material for a song. Duly composed by Will D Cobb and Gus Edwards for Emma Carus to sing in the Broadway musical comedy The Medal and the Maid, In Zanzibar became a hit single for Harry MacDonough in the Spring of 1904. Tanzania was known for its wild animal reserve parks with many species of apes and monkeys which were also considered exotic and still in 1904 a little unusual to think of animals running around free, even though America had its share of lions and bears. In Zanzibar great land of glory a monkey Czar so runs the story, came from afar with love o’er laden to win and woo a monkey maiden with twang Darwinian sang this opinion. The chorus of the song In Zanzibar spoke of my little Chimpanzee, you’re all this world to me, a branch I’ll find for thee in my own fam’ly tree, no monkey shine for me, a wedding fine there’ll be, in high society in Zanzibar. One doubts that Harry MacDonough was singing about a real Chimpanzee and planning to marry it, intelligent and civilized though they may be.

36. George M Cohan

Life’s A Funny Proposition After All

Written by George M Cohan

George Michael Cohan was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1878 and was an entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer and producer. He began his career as a child performing with his parents Jeremiah Jere and Helen Nellie and sister Josephine Josie in a vaudeville act known as The Four Cohans. The act broke up in 1900 when George left Vaudeville to try his luck at writing and performing for the legitimate stages on Broadway. His first full-length show was Little Johnny Jones which included the songs Give My Regards To Broadway and Yankee Doodle Boy as well as this spoken monologue on the meaning of life, Life’s A Funny Proposition After All recited at the end of the show to send the audience home with lots to think about. He said, did you ever sit and ponder, sit and wonder sit and think, why we’re here and what this life is all about? it’s a problem that has driven many brainy men to drink, it’s the weirdest thing they’ve tried to figure out, about a thousand different theories the scientists can show, but never yet have proved a reason why, with all we’ve thought and all we’re taught, why all we seem to know is we’re born live a while then we die, life’s a very funny proposition after all, imagination jealousy hypocrisy gall, three meals a day a whole lot to say, when you haven’t got the coin you’re always in the way, everybody’s fighting we wend our way along, every fellow claims the other fellow’s in the wrong, hurried and worried until we’re buried there’s no curtain call, life’s a very funny proposition after all, when things are coming easy and when luck is with a man, then life to him is sunshine everywhere, then the fates blow rather breezy they quite upset a plan, then he’ll cry that life’s a burden hard to bear, though today may be a day of smiles tomorrow’s still in doubt, what brings me joy may bring you care and woe, we’re born to die but don’t know why or what it’s all about, the more we try to learn the less we know, life’s a very funny proposition you can bet, and no one’s ever solved the problem properly as yet, young for a day then old and grey, like the rose that buds and blooms and fades and falls away, losing health in search of wealth as through this dream we tour, everything’s a guess and nothing’s absolutely sure, battles exciting and fates we’re fighting until the curtain falls, life’s a very funny proposition after all. The audiences at Little Johnny Jones had a lot to think about.

37. Billy Murray        

The Man With The Ladder And The Hose

Written by Geary T Mayo

Billy Murray sang of the heroes who fight a foe, never thinking of the danger, the firemen who keep us safe in our homes, when we climbed the bedroom stairs and we’ve said our evening prayers, kissed little ones and tucked them in their beds, and we lay us down to sleep, who must always pick your teeth so perhaps he may have aching heart and head, when the fire bells ring at night filling timid hearts with fright, and the sky is red with fiery glare, when you hear the pleading cry from a window up on high, who is always there to do and dare, it’s the man with the ladder it’s the man with the hose, who’ll fight the foe no mercy ever shown, a fireman bold and brave, he battles life to save, what moment he may die he never knows, he’s a soldier a sailor, a hero we love, who fears not when to the front he goes, there’s another one in blue, he’s our nation’s hero too, it’s the man with the ladder and the hose.  

38. Byron G Harlan

When The Sunset Turns The Ocean Blue To Gold

Written by Henry W Petrie

Byron G Harlan achieved his eleventh top ten hit with When The Sunset Turns The Ocean Blue To Gold, a ballad composed by Henry W Petrie, born in Bloomington, Illinois in 1857 and a professional song-writer and plugger who promoted his songs to various publishers on Tin Pan Alley. On virtually all of his solo performances, Harlan sang ballads rather than ragtime or comic numbers which he reserved for his duets, mainly with Arthur Collins. When The Sunset Turns The Ocean Blue To Gold was a nostalgic return to his childhood, when the busy day is o’er and the sun is sinking low’r, then I seem to see a dear old southern home, and the long years roll away just a child again I play, with my playmates in the woods we used to roam, and at eve my mother there listens to me say my pray’r, and I feel her kiss as in the days of old, but now mother’s old and grey waiting for me far away, where the sunset turns the ocean’s blue to gold. He sang the chorus twice about the old church bells and the mocking birds and he mentions that now he is far away from the place in days of old. In just under three minutes he omitted the second verse entirely which stated that he is now grown up and has a sweetheart of his own whom he tells the stories of his childhood long ago. Now she has grown old like his mother and he can hear the church bells tolling for her as she is laid to rest beneath the turf.  

1905