1909: "Talk of Your Scand'lous Times" brings you a jam-packed collection of 28 tracks from the year that the outrageous phrase, "Oh, you kid!" was on everyone's lips. As catchphrases go, it may seem innocuous enough, but the shocking familiarity it embodied suggested a loosening of public propriety. The lyrics of popular songs in 1909 proved that envelope-pushing wasn't just a fad. "My Wife's Gone to the Country, Hurrah! Hurrah!" and "I Love, I Love, I Love My Wife, But Oh, You Kid!" played fast and loose with issues of marital fidelity and the sanctity of the hearth. Further, "The Yama-Yama Man," "Beautiful Eyes" and "Wild Cherry Rag" wink knowingly at scandal and changing mores.
How could it be otherwise when scandal seemed all around? The new administration of President William Howard Taft was beleaguered with charges of corruption from the start, as his Interior Secretary, Richard Ballinger, rescinded Roosevelt-era conservation policies and made public lands available for corporate exploitation. Police in New York City were under suspicion for abuse of power at the same time they were opening the most advanced modern headquarters in the country. Looking back over a hundred years, it's apparent that the U.S. was undergoing the growing pains of social consolidation and political centralization.
This eighteenth entry in Archeophone's popular Phonographic Yearbook series is the soundtrack to that year of change. Familiar artists such as Billy Murray, Ada Jones, Collins and Harlan, Henry Burr, and the Haydn Quartet all appear. So too do stage favorites Harry Lauder and Blanche Ring. Some all-time classics made their debut in 1909, such as the Bayes-Norworth composition, "Shine on, Harvest Moon," found here in two versions, as well as immortal chestnuts such as "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" and "Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet." Funny enough, "Old Grey Bonnet" recalls a time before the Civil War when things were simpler--and less scand'lous.
