Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-09-14
"SOlD FOR A SONG"
Origin of a Popular Phrase That Is
Less Applicable Now.

best phrase to describe a bad market.
In these days when a song hit is worth
$40 O.OOO-perhaps $3O,OOO-the express
fifty years ago there was nothing else
that told the story better.
A certain Mrs. Allen of Maine, wrote
Rock Me to Sleep" She was paid IS
for it by a publishing firm in Boston
that made something like $3,995 on the
transaction. And after that those gen.
erous publishers promised to pay her
IS apiece for any other songs she might
write. They were just that rash and
open-handed!
About that same time an organist
named H. p. Danks heard that this
lady in Maine was making scads Of
money from song writing. So he wrote
SILVER Threads Among the Gold" to
try his own luck. The combination of
silver and gold in the title may have
helped his chances. Anyway. he got
all of $40 for it.
song writer in civil war days, or
few years before that, was usually
That may have been the most popular
way of getting an extra $40 from the
publishers and appealing to the fancy
of customers. Certainly there is a
whole school of romantically ill-paid
song writer's at this period.
One Of the most typical of these was
+. W. n. Crouch. He sold the copy
right of Kathleen Mavourneen" for
five pounds (s25) and thought himself
lucky" AS the story develops, how
ever, he wasn't. He was highly I'M
provident person who sometimes play
ed first cello for a living. When his
song was first sung in New York he
had to work as a scene shifter to get a
chance to hear it. Then he stood in
the wings weeping as he listened:
When Titiens came off the stage he
thanked her for singing his work with
much feeling. Soon after that he dis
appeared.
OAN
Folks at Home" was another of the
improvident musical geniuses who fur
nished romanticists with much to sigh
about. +. P. Christy, the minstrel
man, paid Foster s4OO for "Old Folks at
Home" Wait-the reason the price
was so high was that Christy was pay
ing for the privilege Of having his own
name appear on the covers of the song
as author and composer.
There is one story that Foster re-
ceived modern rates for his goods af-
ter his first songs won him a name.
This, however, is not so general
ly accepted as the account which
tells of how he broke into tears
on the street one day when he
opened a letter from his wife which
contained a picture Of her child and a
plea for money. He ended his life, the
story says, in a cheap hotel in New
York. From eXhaustion-perhaps from
climbing four flights Of stairs-he fell
and struck against a washbasin, sever
ing an artery in his head. He was too
weak to rise or even call for help. A
few days later he died in a public hos
pital and was buried in the potters
field.
Thomas Dunn English, author Of
Ben Bolt" was not SD romantically
poor as Foster. He even became con-
gressman. But he made up for all that
by getting the bottom price for his
work-which was nothing at all, unless
he was received with a smile" at the
publishing office. Even that Is improb-
able. And Foster, dying in New
York roomng house, may not have
had q sadder end than English, who
died in Newark. If there is anything
sadder than New York it is New York's
suburbs in which Newark may be in
cluded.
Daniel Decatur Emmett, the author
of Dixie" was another song writer
who wouldn't bubble over a cent or
two. He ended life in a small town in
Ohio in 1894 raising chickens and corn
and chopping wood for living. In SO
years of song writing his pay had been
almost $500. 1t is only just to say,
however, that he got $500 for Dixie"
He died without divulging the secret
of how he did it.
Maryland" which had great popularity
at the same time that Dixie" was a
new hit" had to be satisfied with $25
in Confederate bills.
About the only author in the rare,
old, fair old, golden days" who re-
ceived something family suggestive Of
what he deserved was John Howard
Payne, author of Home, Sweet Home"
He was paid e25O G1.25O). Nobody
appears to know how he managed to-
get it.
But among other things that were
reconstructed i'm reconstruction days
was a better scale of wages for the
song writer's. BY 1898 Charles K. Har-
ris was making $1,000 a day in royal
ties on After the Ball." Before the
sale ended he had received $4,000.
Paul Dresser a few years later got
$4,000 for ION the Banks of the Wa
bash" Then came the Good old SUM-
mer Time" for another $4,000. After
that no one ever uses for a song" as
a term of belttlement unless he's
thinking of the songs that every pub
fishers rcjects.-Kansas City Star.
A Little Dialogue.
limo 1,,N- 9