Gimmy Crack Corn

[Peter A. McGraw]

Like Beverly, I fail to find any indication in the song that the narrator
is saddened by the departure of his master.  If "Jim[my] crack corn" indeed
refers to a person doing something (as opposed to naming an inferior
liquor), then the master's absence has had two positive outcomes: Jim or
Jimmy is now free to crack corn (to whatever end) and the narrator is free
not to worry about it.

Whoever actually wrote the song, I wonder where the story came from.  It
seems less likely to have sprung spontaneously from the writer's
imagination than to be based on some actual freakish accident.  My wife
goes so far as to think it may be a story about a slave killing his master
and getting away with it by successfully framing a fly in a story so well
concocted that even a jury would have fallen for it.  All speculation, of
course.

Peter Mc.

--On Sunday, August 29, 2004 10:42 PM -0400 Beverly Flanigan
<flanigan at OHIO.EDU> wrote:

> As it happens, I read a short story by an Irish author a few days ago
> which contained a reference to some "gimcrack" renovations made by the
> main characters.  The implied meaning was clearly that they were
> cheap-looking.  So "gimcrack corn" = "cheap corn whiskey" makes sense to
> me.  But I wonder if the singer/narrator slave would have been "saddened"
> by the death of his master, bitten fatally, apparently, by a blue-tail
> fly.  When we sang this as kids (did you all learn these Dixie songs in
> your northern schools too?), we feigned sadness and tears at "He died and
> the jury wondered why" and then whooped with joy into the line "a victim
> of the blue-tail fly" and the final chorus of "Gim(my)-crack corn and I
> don't care, my master's [or massa's?] gone away."  In fact, the lyrics
> referenced by Doug in another note suggest that the slave wasn't
> particularly careful about brushing away the flies while his master
> slept. . . .



*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************