Hello, friends--I'm enjoying the conversation about "My Bonnie"
(which, by the way, has made the song a lot more interesting than I
thought it was). While you are all pondering, I wonder if I could
pose another question to you all, on behalf of a Japanese folksong
scholar who inquires whether "Oh, My Darling Clementine" is/was really
a gold rush song or not. All I can find on it is an attribution of
both words and music to someone name Montross. I have always assumed
that the song is a later pop song parodying the presumed values and
oddities of the goldrush era. The wording and the music certainly do
not reek of the mines or of miners. But when did it start to become
popular, and what are its origins--does anyone know? I'm sure it
doesn't have to do with absentee princes and secret politics, so it
may be a subject you'd like to file until after Thanksgiving (by the
way, what DO the rest of you do on a weekend like this, when we
Americans are consuming thrice our weight in mythic foods? Do you feel
a food-vacuum (zieht's Ihnen)?
All best wishes, Barre Toelken (Utah)
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