Fwd: %"Underdog" Song (Quotation Query #235)

[Barnhart]

on 12/1/02 8:53 AM, Fred Shapiro at fred.shapiro at yale.edu wrote:

> The word "underdog" is said to have originated in a 19th-century song
or
> poem by David Barker ("The Under-Dog in the Fight").  Can anyone
supply
> any information about when this Barker text was first published, and
> whether it was a song or a poem?

Fred:

I didn't find a song with lyrics by David Barker but I found these
entries
at the Levy Sheet Music Collection

Title: The Under Dog in the Fight.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Composed by A.J. Higgins.
Publication: New York: J.L. Peters, n.d..
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: I know that the world the great big world From the Peasant
up to
the King
First Line of Chorus: For the under dog in the fight
Plate Number: 617
Subject: Dogs
Subject: Fighting
Subject: Political elections
Call No.: Box: 051 Item: 101

Title: The under Dog in the fight
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Composed by A.J. Higgins
Publication: Chicago, Ill.: A. Judson Higgins, 40 Clark St., 1861.
Form of Composition: strophic; last verse has different music
Instrumentation: voice and piano
First Line: I know that the world, the great big world From the Peasant
up
to the King
Advertisement: Ads on back for A. Judson Higgons stock
Plate Number: 617
Subject: Dogs
Subject: Fighting
Call No.: Box: 032 Item: 112


If you go to that web site and type in "under-dog" in the search box you
will get these results and can view the lyrics and music online.

http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/advancedsearch.html

I also searched the American Memory Project at Library of Congress for
that
term with no applicable results.

Karen Weiss
Santa Barbara Public Library