Origin
While the origins of the song are obscure, some evidence places its roots with vaudeville and theatre acts of the late 19th century and early 20th century popular in immigrant communities. Some vaudeville acts during the era, such as the work of Joe Weber and Lew Fields, often gave voice to shared frustrations of German-American immigrants and heavily leaned on malapropisms and difficulties with the English language as a vehicle for its humor. Further, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt shares many characteristics with "My Name is Jan Jansen" a song that can trace its origin to Swedish vaudeville in the late 19th century.
The song can be sung in an infinite loop, like "The Song That Never Ends", "My Name is Jan Jansen", "Michael Finnegan", or "High Hopes".
Versions of this song also appear in other languages, such as the Spanish rendition; "Juan Pedro Pablo de la Mar".
Read more about this topic: John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other.”
—Neal Cassady (1926–1968)
“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)