Shortnin' Bread

"Shortnin' Bread" (also spelled "Shortenin' Bread", "Short'nin' Bread", or "Sho'tnin' Bread") is an American folk song dating back at least to 1900, when James Whitcomb Riley published it as a poem. While there is speculation that Riley may have based his poem on an earlier African-American plantation song, no definitive evidence of such an origin has yet been uncovered. A "collected" version of the song was published by E. C. Perrow in 1915. It is song number 4209 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

Shortening bread refers to a bread made of corn meal and/or flour and lard shortening.

Origins

The origin of "Shortnin' Bread" is obscure. Despite speculation of African-American roots, it is possible that it may have originated with Riley as a parody of a plantation song, in the minstrel or coon song traditions popular at the time.

Riley titled the song "A Short'nin' Bread Song—Pieced Out", and wrote the first verse as:

The dialect rendered into common English would be:

The verse includes:

Another pair of verses may be later, and exist in several versions:

In some versions there are two children instead of three - and the "other" either "bump'd his head" or "was dead". The first doesn't quite scan. The children (or "chillun") were once referred to by one of several racist terms.

Other verses include:

Reese DuPree composed a version recorded in 1927.

Folk version

Titled "Shortened Bread", E. C. Perrow published the first folk version of this song in 1915, which he collected from East Tennessee in 1912. The folk version of the song—as with Riley's—does not have any distinct theme, but consists of various floating lyrics, some relating to "shortnin' bread", some not. The traditional chorus associated with the folk song goes:

Other renditions

In popular culture

The Beach Boys

"Shortenin' Bread" was recorded by the American rock band the Beach Boys numerous times. Only one version has seen official release, as the final track on their 1979 album L.A. (Light Album). The band's principal songwriter Brian Wilson was reportedly obsessed with the song, having recorded more than a dozen versions of the tune. Beach Boy Al Jardine speculated that Wilson's obsession with the song may have begun after co-writing the song "Ding Dang" with the Byrds' Roger McGuinn in the early 1970s. Numerous anecdotes have been reported about Wilson's obsession with the song:

• Alex Chilton, the former lead singer of Big Star, recalled receiving middle-of-the-night phone calls from Wilson asking him to sing on a recording of "Shortenin' Bread"' ("He was telling me I have the perfect voice for it").

• The Monkees' Micky Dolenz said that when he tripped on LSD with Wilson, John Lennon, and Nilsson, Wilson played "Shortenin' Bread" on piano "over and over again".

• Biographer Peter Ames Carlin wrote that Elton John and Iggy Pop were bemused by an extended, contumacious Wilson-led singalong of "Shortenin' Bread", leading Pop to flee the room proclaiming, "I gotta get out of here, man. This guy is nuts!"

• Musician Alice Cooper recalled that Wilson considered "Shortnin' Bread" to be the greatest song ever written. According to Cooper, when he asked why, Wilson responded "I don't know, it's just the best song ever written."

A number of Wilson-produced "Shortenin' Bread" and "Ding Dang" variations remain unreleased. Titles include "Clangin'" (recorded with Harry Nilsson), "Brian's Jam", and "Rolling Up to Heaven". A version that was developed from a 1973 session, featuring American Spring as guest vocalists, was completed for the unreleased album Adult/Child in 1977.

Music

• The Unity Church sings "every little cell in my body is healthy / every little cell in my body is well" to the tune of "Shortnin' Bread". It appears in all three editions of the hymnal and was reportedly used by Myrtle Fillmore during her healing.
• The tune for a significant portion of "The Happy Organ" (1959) bears a strong resemblance to the "Shortnin' Bread" tune (the portion under "put on the skillet, slip on the lid, mammy's gonna make us some shortnin' bread").
• "Bread and Butter" by The Newbeats (1964) is also based on the "put on the skillet" melody. "I Can't Believe What You Say (for Seeing What You Do)" by Ike Turner (1964) shares this progression.
• Keyboardist Keith Emerson incorporated the melody line within Aaron Copland's "Hoedown" at the opening of Emerson, Lake and Palmer concerts.
• The melody from the "put on the skillet" portion also forms the harmonic choruses of "Little Bitty Pretty One" by Thurston Harris and the Sharps (1957), "The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)" by The Banana Splits (1968), and "Buffalo Soldier" by Bob Marley and the Wailers (1983).
• In the Elvis Presley song "Clambake", "Shortnin' Bread" is paraphrased as "mama's little baby loves clambake clambake, mama's little baby loves clambake too."
• Paul Chaplain and his Emeralds took a rock version of the song to No. 82 in the Hot 100 in August 1962.
• The chorus to the song is used as a melody in the song "Pachuco Cadaver" on Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band.
• The 1994 song "Deuces Are Wild" by Aerosmith features the line "mama's little baby loves shortnin' bread" in the lyrics.
• Hap Palmer wrote a song "Sittin' in a High Chair" for his 1984 album BabySong while using the music to adapt it. A video for the song shows a mama orangutan feeding her baby.
• Johnny Cash mentioned the line "mama's little baby loves shortnin' bread" in the Mark O'Connor song "The Devil Comes Back to Georgia", a continuation of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" and a collaboration with Marty Stuart, Travis Tritt, and Charlie Daniels.
• On the long-running radio variety show A Prairie Home Companion, the jingle for one of the show's fictional sponsors, Bebop-A-Reebop Rhubarb Pie, is based on "Shortnin' Bread"

Film

• Willie the Whale (voiced by Nelson Eddy) sings the first verse and the chorus of the song in the animated short "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met" featured in the Disney film Make Mine Music (1946).
• Donald Duck sings the song while making pancakes in the animated short Three for Breakfast (1948) and you can hear him sing a short version of this in Lion Around (1950).
• In the Looney Tunes cartoon Swooner Crooner (1944), the first of many crooning roosters who audition for Porky Pig is a caricature of Vaughn Monroe who sings the refrain.
• In the Merrie Melodies cartoon Hare Tonic (1945), Elmer Fudd sings the song at the beginning of the cartoon but with the lyrics changed from "shortnin' bread" into "wabbit stew".
• Rosa Rio played the song in her original Video Yesteryear score for The Wizard of Oz (1925) in the mid-1980s as a theme for the character of Snowball (Spencer Bell, credited as G. Howe Black). Some reviewers found this reinforced the racist portrayal of the character.
• In the film Police Academy 4 (1987), the character Captain Harris is seen singing the song into his cane.
• Similarities have been noted in the main theme for Driving Miss Daisy (1989).
• In the movie Trainspotting (1996), Renton's friends and family sing the song in a celebration after he avoids being jailed.
• At the end of the credits in the movie Secret Window (2004), Johnny Depp is heard singing the song.
• Chris Rock sings this at a funeral in the comedy Death at a Funeral (2010).
• Rod Steiger sings a modified version, "mama's little joy boy loves lobster, lobster" in the black comedy The Loved One (1965), when describing a nightmare he had involving his mother and lobsters.

Television

• In the I Love Lucy episode "Ethel's Home Town" (1955), Ethel sings "Shortnin' Bread" while Lucy, Ricky, and Fred perform a comedy routine behind her.
• The Bullwinkle Show (1959-1964): Numerous characters sing this song in different contexts. In one Dudley Do-Right segment, "The Masked Ginny Lynne", Dudley begins leaping around and dancing while singing this song, as the opera singer renders everyone else inert with her soporific moan. One Fractured Fairy Tales retelling of "The Three Little Pigs" begins with three pig sisters receiving a singing telegram, to the tune of this song, telling them they have inherited a fortune.
• The Banana Splits (1969): The "Tra La La" theme song uses a chorus derived from "Shortnin' Bread".
• In 1984, the children's music trio Sharon, Lois & Bram performed this song in Season 1 of their hit TV show Sharon, Lois & Bram's Elephant Show.
• In the 1985 Kidsongs video, "A Day at Old MacDonald's Farm", "Shortnin' Bread" is sung in a different way pertaining to eating breakfast.
• In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Harley and Ivy", Harley Quinn hums the refrain in one scene while setting a table.
• In the Ren & Stimpy episode, "I Love Chicken", Ren Höek sings the song whilst preparing a meal.
• At the end of a The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode, Will is seen singing the song while scrubbing the floor with his cousin as the end credits roll.
• In the Tom and Jerry cartoon, "The Milky Waif" (1946), the tune of "Shortnin' Bread" is played when Jerry and Nibbles daub themselves with shoe polish and appear in blackface to confuse Tom.
• In the Warner Bros. animated television series Animaniacs, this song is part of the regular soundtrack for the adventures of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, and is played over and over again throughout the series.
• In the episode "Terms of Endearment" on the adult comedy show Drawn Together, the character Foxxy Love sings a few verses of the refrain.

References

Bibliography

• Badman, Keith (2004). The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band, on Stage and in the Studio. Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-0-87930-818-6.
• Carlin, Peter Ames (2006). Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. Rodale. ISBN 978-1-59486-320-2.
• Eitel, Edmund Henry (ed.) The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, Vol 5. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company (1913).
• George-Warren, Holly (20 March 2014). A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, From Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man. Penguin Group US. ISBN 978-0-698-15142-0.
• Lambert, Philip (2007). Inside the Music of Brian Wilson: the Songs, Sounds, and Influences of the Beach Boys' Founding Genius. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-1876-0.
• Perrow, E.C. "Songs and Rhymes from the South." The Journal of American Folklore, 28:108 (April - Jun. 1915) 129–190.
• Wade, Stephen. The Beautiful Music all Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.
• Waltz, Robert B; David G. Engle. "Shortenin' Bread". The Traditional Ballad Index: An Annotated Bibliography of the Folk Songs of the English-Speaking World. Hosted by California State University, Fresno, Folklore, 2007.

External links

• The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley: In Ten Volumes, Including Poems and Prose Sketches, Many of which Have Not Heretofore Been Published; an Authentic Biography, an Elaborate Index and Numerous Illustrations in Color from Paintings by Howard Chandler Christy and Ethel Franklin Betts – complete text of James Whitcomb Riley's "A Short'nin' Bread Song—Pieced Out".
• A traditional version of lyrics and an MP3 clip are here Shortenin' Bread • Lyrics & Song Clip (free mp3)