The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-14
POPULAR SONGS
 AND THEIR STORIES Home, Sweet Home and Su- vance River Hold Favor HOW THEY ORIGINATED Annie Laurie" Is Also Widely Popu- lar and 10 Promise Me- Is
 One of Largest Sellers
 on Market.
HOW THEY ORIGINATED
BY FREDERIC j. HAsKIN.

Ask someone what class of songs are
 most popular. He probably will say
 love songs, of course" And then you
 may tell him that so far as English
 speaking people are concerned 'le is quite
 wrong The songs that live and are
 sung every day are those which breathe
 the affection of the wanderer for his
 home. Wherever the English language is spoken the most popular song is Home, Sweet Home," and the second l place is awarded to ''Suwanee River.
 Many songs that are immortal have'come
 from Britain, but it is significant that
 the two lyrics which have proved most
 popular are from the pens of Americans.
 Home, Sweet Home" was first sung
 by Miss Maria Tree at the Theatre Royal in Coyent Garden in London on May S. 1S23 It was, as almost every school boy knows a song in the opera "Clari,
 or the Maid of Milan the music by Henry Rawley Bishop and the words by John Howard Payne Some songs
 are kept alive by tune and some by words. The air to Home, Sweet Home" had
 been used for another song several years
 before although it isn't an ancient Scil- ian air as Is sometimes asserted. It had | not proved popular. When Miss Tree sang Home, Sweet Home" in London in May, the first sun in June found all Eng lapd singing it. The words made 1t, When Jenny Lind made her triumphal tour of America she won the hearts of the people by singing Home, Sweet Home as an encore. Pattie followed the example of the Swedish nightingale, singing this song oftener than any other, and many opera singers have kept up the custom. Some htyt,a Iaxy bitterly but Home. Sweet Home is still. the premier operatic encore.
 The little house that John Howard Payne left when a boy, and which he had in mind when he wrote the immortal song, still stands in q Long Island vll- lage Payne never knew a home of his own and died in Tunis, where he was stationed as American consul. His body was brought back to this country by w. w. Corcoran. the Washington philanthro- pist and lies in a cemetery almost under the shadow of the dome of the capitol While the world has forgot that John Howard Payne was the first American actor to succeed on the European stage, has forgot that John Howard Payne wrote the play "Brutus,' in which Kean, For rest and Mccullough stirred our grand fathers, the world has not forgot and will not forget John Howard Payne be- cause of the song that cannot be sung
 with throats all clear and eyes all dry.
 'The Old Folks at Home, or as it is generally known, '',rhe Suwanee River.s is one of the many popular songs written and composed by Stephen Collins Foster. It is sung today in every American and British possession, its air has been ap- propriated for folk-songs of Russia and
 Japan, and to whistle it is a passport
 to tuneful brotherhood under any sky. Stephen Collins Foster was born and reared in Pittsburg. When he wrote the Suwanee River song he had never been
 south of Mason and Dixon's line. He
 wrote the song without any particular river in mind and then went to the law
 office of his brother and asked for the
 name of river down south that was pronounced in two syllables Yazoo and Pedee were suggested and rejected. The lawyer brother could think of no other
 and the two had recourse to an atlas | "Suwanee," cried Foster with his finger
 on the map of Florida. And thus did this
 obscure little river come into immortal | fame.
 l Foster wrote My Old Kentucky Home" l "Old Black Joe" and many other songs l which had great vogue in their day and
 which continue to be sung and played
 My Old Kentucky Home was written ! l Senator John Rowan at Bardstown Ky l It came to him as he was out for an afternoon walk with his niece It was set down immediately and that evening
 his niece. Mrs. Crosman, sang it for the l first time. Mrs. Crosman was the mother
 of Henrietta Crosman, the popular ac-
 tress
 Foster was unveiled by a descendant in l Louisville two years ago on the occasion of the first great Kentucky home com
 ing. Among those who saw the unveiI-
 ing and aided to sing My Old Kentucky l Home" that day was Will Shapespeare Hays. an octogenarian song writer. Mir | Hays died few weeks since, died at 1 his post of river editor of the Courier
 Journal place he had filled for nearly 1 half century. His song Molly DarI- 1 ing has delighted millions, and while 1t
 is now rarely heard In this country 1t
 Is still in vogue in far parts of the world | Of these popular songs we call "old l fashioned there are hundreds whose
 stories are worth telling No one knows l why certain songs live and others die | No one knows why the rage of a season | will be forgot in a year, and why an-
 other song of apparently less merit will | be sung and on. But nearly everyone l knows the delight, when the ear is tired
 and the soul is sick of the tunes of the
 day, of grouping about the piano, around
 someone with a memory, and groping
 back through the years VI songs that are
 half forgot. Try it. It is surprising how glad you will be even to hear After the 1 BalP once again. and how delighted you | will be to greet Sweet Marie" and "Shoo | Fly" and "Only a Pansy Blossom and Gathering up the Shells from the Sea | shore" and "A Lighthouse by the Sea-
 and our ear-spltting old chums. Tara ] ra-ra -boom-d -de-ay'' and Hot Time.' There will be no chronology in such a tuneful retrospectfon. but when the songs that have passed are for the moment | called from their graves. it will be strange | indeed if at the close of the singing some c- als T.