"Blue Tail Fly," "De Blue Tail Fly," or "Jimmy Crack Corn" is thought to be a blackface minstrel song, first performed in the United States in the 1840s. It remains a popular children's song today.
Over the years, many lyrical variants have appeared, but the basic narrative remains intact. On the surface, the song is a black slave's lament over his master's death. The song, however, has a subtext of rejoicing over that death, and possibly having caused it by deliberate negligence. Most versions at least nod to idiomatic African English, though sanitized, Standard English versions now predominate.
The blue-tail fly mentioned in the song is probably Tabanus atratus, a species of horse-fly found in the American South. As it feeds on the blood of animals such as horses and cattle, as well as humans, it constitutes a prevalent pest in agricultural regions. This species of horse-fly has a blue-black abdomen, hence the name.
Read more about Jimmy Crack Corn: Lyrics, History and Interpretation, Covers, Popular Culture References
Famous quotes containing the words jimmy, crack and/or corn:
“You’ve just fulfilled the first role of law enforcement. Make sure when your shift is over you go home alive.”
—David Mamet, U.S. screenwriter, and Brian DePlama. Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery)
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We legislate against forestalling and monopoly; we would have a common granary for the poor; but the selfishness which hoards the corn for high prices, is the preventative of famine; and the law of self-preservation is surer policy than any legislation can be.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)