"Miss Lucy Long", also known as "Lucy Long" and other variants, is an American song that was popularized in the blackface minstrel show. A comic banjo tune, the lyrics, written in exaggerated Black Vernacular English, tell of the courtship or marriage of the male singer and the title character. The song is highly misogynistic; the male character dominates Lucy and continues his sexually promiscuous lifestyle despite his relationship with her. "Miss Lucy Long" thus satirizes black concepts of beauty and courtship and American views of marriage in general.
After its introduction to the stage by the Virginia Minstrels in 1843, "Miss Lucy Long" was adopted by rival troupes. George Christy's cross-dressed interpretation standardized the portrayal of the title character and made the song a hit in the United States. "Miss Lucy Long" became the standard closing number for the minstrel show, where it was regularly expanded into a comic skit complete with dialogue. Versions were printed in more songsters and performed in more minstrel shows than any other popular song in the antebellum period. In blackface minstrelsy, the name Lucy came to signify any sexually promiscuous pervert.
Read more about Miss Lucy Long: Lyrics, Structure and Performance, Popularity
Famous quotes containing the words lucy and/or long:
“What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover’s head!
‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried,
‘If Lucy should be dead!’”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Yes, in the long run there is something to be said for these shiftless days, each distilling its drop of poison until the cup is full; there is something to be said for them because there is no escaping them.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)