Jimmy Crack(-ed?/-s?) Corn

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>Someone -- ... -- told us it was simply a corruption of "Gimme cracked
>corn," ....

But the sheet music from 1846 is reproduced at the LOC "American Memories"
site, and it shows neither "give me'" nor "gimme" nor "Jimmy": it shows
"Jim". The musical notation there also matches the monosyllable "Jim" (FWIW).

In 1972 there was a newspaper column in which Burl Ives was quoted as
claiming that the original form of the song had "give me" but that he
(Ives) had changed it to "Jimmy". Maybe a misquotation?

Anyway one would need to show the "give me" version before 1846 to
substantiate the implausible "gimme" story ... and I can't find anything
before 1972.

-- Doug Wilson