My Mammy

"My Mammy" is an American popular song with music by Walter Donaldson and lyrics by Joe Young and Sam M. Lewis.

Original Sheet Music for "My Mammy" in Broadway's Sinbad

Though associated with Al Jolson, who performed the song very successfully, "My Mammy" was performed first in 1918 by William Frawley (later to become famous on I Love Lucy) as a vaudeville act.[1] Saul Bornstein, the general manager in early 1921 for Irving Berlin Music Publishing, brought the song to Jolson's attention; Jolson first interpolated the song in January 1921 to the Broadway show Sinbad which was in the fourth year of its run. Jolson recorded this song twice and performed it in films, including The Jazz Singer (1927), The Singing Fool (1928) and Rose of Washington Square (1939).[2] His voice can also be heard (dubbing actor Larry Parks) singing the song in The Jolson Story (1946).[3]

The group The Happenings revived the song in 1967 with a recording that reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100. During their PopMart Tour of 1997–98, rock music band U2 would often quote the line "The sun shines east, the sun shines west, I know where the sun shines best" in performances of their song, "Miami". "The British rock band The Psychedelic Furs parodied it in their song "We Love You", singing "I would walk a million smiles for one of your miles". In the Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, the song is parodied in the song "Muqǐn". It is also parodied in the jukebox musical Our House (musical) in the song 'Rise and Fall' and 'The Sun and the Rain (Act II)'

Lyrics and interpretation

The song can be considered as a tribute sung by a man who, during his childhood, was nurtured by a mammy, a surrogate mother who supplanted the role that would have otherwise been provided by his biological mother. In the song, this person, now an adult, is returning to his aging mammy and proclaiming his unconditional love for her, hoping that despite her age she can still recognise him as her "little baby." [4]

Recorded versions

The song "My Mammy" has been recorded by many artists, including:

gollark: So just don't run random binaries or whatever, which you should avoid anyway.
gollark: Never mind, I checked and it does exist, but apparently it's just an addition to an existing trojan which makes it meddle in discord.
gollark: I don't really believe it.
gollark: M I N E T E S T but better or something.
gollark: SolarFlame5 is a modern Prometheus.

References
  1. White, Mark (1983). "You must remember this—": popular songwriters, 1900-1980. F. Warne. p. 79
  2. "My Mammy" sung by Al Jolson (audio only), recorded for Rose of Washington Square (1939 film) on YouTube
  3. Hebert G. Goldman, Jolson: The Legend Comes to Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 114-115.
  4. "SongMeanings.com". Retrieved 11 February 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.