by Tim Rayborn
Yet another theory states that the song simply refers to the deterioration of the bridge over many centuries. London Bridge in the Middle Ages was a wonder—with a good number of houses and shops standing on it—but over time, of course, these started to fall apart and were further damaged by a fire in 1633. However, the bridge acted as a firebreak in the great fire of 1666, thus helping to spare the south bank of the city.
Ring around the Rosy
This rhyme has a special place in the speculations about dark origins of nursery rhymes. It has long been claimed that this light-hearted song and dance actually referred to the dreadful scourge of the bubonic plague, specifically the 1665 outbreak in London and surrounding areas, or perhaps to the original Black Death in the fourteenth century. The argument goes that the “rosy ring” refers to the rash and bubos that appeared on the victims. The posies indicate the belief that the plague was carried by bad smells and could be prevented by the armor of fresh scents. Ashes could refer to the burning of the bodies, though an alternate line reads, “A-tishoo! A-tishoo!” that is said to symbolize the sneezing of the afflicted. Finally, “we all fall down” means, of course, the victims soon die—lovely.
All of this seems wonderfully sinister and plausible at first, but most modern folklorists reject this reading of the song for a number of reasons. The plague interpretation did not appear until after World War II. In fact, the rhyme was only first printed in 1881 and may not have existed for too long before that. Further, the alleged symptoms being described are not particularly close to what plague victims actually experienced.
A more likely explanation has to do with nineteenth-century bans on dancing in certain strict Protestant communities in England and the United States. Some teenagers and children were able to circumvent the ban by creating rhyme “games” involving circle or ring dances with no musical accompaniment. Despite the wonderfully gross images that it evokes, this rhyme likely comes out of that tradition and has no deeper meaning.
Georgie Porgie
This seemingly innocent little rhyme was known in the mid-nineteenth century, but there is a theory linking it to a very sensitive political issue from several centuries earlier concerning George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628). As a young man, George was brought to the attention of King James I, who took a great liking to him. Rumors of the king’s sexual liaisons with handsome young men were already whispered away from polite conversation, and George seems to be the perfect candidate for such an arrangement. The exact nature of their relationship is unknown, but George did indeed become a royal favorite, was well rewarded, and for a time had the support of various courtiers. He played the game well.
He declared an admiration for Anne of Austria (1601–1666), queen consort of King Louis XIII of France, which caused a bit of a scandal, though we don’t know if they were conducting an actual affair (Alexandre Dumas portrayed them as lovers in The Three Musketeers).
Though he had good looks and charm, he was also rude, crass, and a loudmouth who screwed up a number of diplomatic military missions. Only his favored status with the king kept him from the harm that some wished on him, or at least from being ostracized and ruined. Eventually the resentment of fellow courtiers and men under his command caught up with him, which may be what is referred to in the lines “When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away.” In August 1628, while he was preparing for another military venture, he was stabbed by one John Felton, a soldier from an earlier campaign who was angry at being passed over for a promotion. George allegedly rose to chase after him, but died of his injuries. Felton was later hanged, though quite a few were glad that the vain Duke of Buckingham was gone, and poems circulated proclaiming Felton a hero.
Sing a Song of Sixpence
The earliest mention of this rhyme dates from the eighteenth century. The reference to blackbirds in a pie may refer to a medieval practice for putting live creatures, and even musicians (!), into large pies to have them later burst out for the amusement of noble diners. Indeed, at a grand banquet from the year 1454, a troupe of no fewer than twenty-eight musicians emerged from a piecrust to entertain the guests with their songs.
Known as the Feast of the Pheasant, the banquet was hosted by Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy (1396–1467). Other entertainments included jousting, plays, and a live elephant. All of this was done as part of Philip’s very public gesture—and that of some of the lesser nobles in attendance—to take up arms in a new crusade against the Ottoman Turks, who had taken the city of Constantinople the year before, much to the shock and horror of the West. Despite his declaration to fight the Turks, nothing ultimately came of his proposed crusade except crumbs in the musicians’ instruments.
In any case, blackbirds or pigeons flying out of a pie for medieval courtly amusement certainly happened from time to time, and not just at such lavish feasts. These pies were not meant to be eaten, by the way, in case you are revolted by the thought of bird feathers and germs all over the food—or even worse, musician germs.
The title of the rhyme seems to have been drawn from a long tradition of paying musicians a meager amount for a song; nothing ever changes. Shakespeare writes in Twelfth Night, act II, scene III: “Come on; there is sixpence for you: let’s have a song.”
The only problem with the whole bird theory is that there is an earlier version of the rhyme, printed in 1744, with only one verse, the second half of which reads, “Four and twenty Naughty Boys, Baked in a Pye.” This is quite different and conjures up some rather unpleasant mental images. So which came first? Was there a “bird version” already circulating based on medieval and Tudor extravagance? Or were the “naughty boys” the originals, changed to blackbirds a few decades later because cannibalism was rather unacceptable? In either case, the modern “exotic dancer” bursting out of the birthday cake is probably a descendant of this strange tradition.
7
Musical Curses, Bad Luck, and Superstitions
Belief in curses extends back throughout our known history and has been used to explain all kinds of bad luck. Curses can be spoken, or put on objects as a means of protection from harm or interference by outsiders, or perhaps they come about by unknown methods. We have all heard the stories of the “mummy’s curse” that was said to have been placed on King Tut’s tomb by sorcerers, though these rumors probably actually date from the time of the tomb’s excavation. The story would have been meant to discourage grave robbers and treasure-seekers. Indeed, a number of accidents, maladies, and deaths did befall those involved in excavating Tutankhamen’s tomb. These misfortunes are usually put down to coincidence or even the power of psychology. If one believes in a curse, one can be harmed by it. Others involved in the excavation experienced no problems at all, so we can take comfort in that.
Many sources have been blamed for curses, including black magicians, witches, necromancers, and the like. In some cultures in past centuries, it was even possible to visit one of these individuals and, for a price, have a curse put on an enemy. Plato noted in the Republic that such individuals would, for a fee, bring harm to anyone, good or evil. King James I of England had a paranoid fear of black magic and believed that witches were conspiring against not only his reign, but all that was good; he fully believed in their power to curse. Shakespeare was aware of this fear, which partially influenced his inclusion of the three witches in Macbeth.
Superstitious behaviors and beliefs are also as old as humanity, at least as old as we’ve been able to think and understand. They probably arose through people engaging in some action and seeing a result, whether positive or negative. Confusing correlation with causation, it was easy to associate a given action with a given outcome, no matter how unrelated they actually were. In our haughty modernity we like to scoff at these behaviors, dismissing them as outdated, primitive beliefs to which we as sophisticated modern folks would never succumb. After all, we have cell phones, high-speed Internet connections, and laser surgery. How could we ever fall for something
so stupid?
Well, think about it the next time you decide to step around a ladder because you don’t want to walk under it, or you sing a good-luck song and wear your lucky cap to “help” your favorite sports team win that playoff game, or you feel just a twinge of dread when something goes wrong on Friday the 13th. How many of your friends complain about mechanical and communication failures during a Mercury Retrograde? We’ve all done these things; don’t deny it.
We still have our superstitions; they may well be hardwired into our simian brains. Some of them have become more complex or better rationalized, but in the end, we are very interested in trying to influence the world around us and will often resort to irrational and even very silly things in our attempts to do so.
Music—which stirs the emotions and embraces mysticism, spiritual belief, and personal expression—seems a natural place for superstitions to arise. The heightened state of feeling induced by music can encourage strong beliefs of all kinds. Indeed, many major composers held deeply superstitious beliefs right into modern times, and a number of personal rules, traditions, and regulations about performing and playing have arisen over the centuries. We will look at a sampling of these, from the amusing to the stupid, including a few that will make you wonder if there isn’t a little something more to the whole thing than irrational belief.
The curse of “Gloomy Sunday”
The idea of a work of art being cursed or bringing bad luck is well established in theatrical circles, where Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a popular example. The play is so surrounded with superstition that one must never even say its title on stage (i.e, during rehearsals), but instead must refer to it only as “The Scottish Play.” This practice might amuse those who would dismiss the whole thing as silly, but many actors still insist on following the tradition.
Examples of musical curses are not as well known, but there is at least one song that has earned the reputation of bringing very bad luck not only to those who sing it, but also, and especially, to those who hear it. There are numerous urban legends about it, some contradictory, most unproven. Written in 1932 or 1933 by a Hungarian composer named Resző Seress and lyricist László Jávor, the tune is called “Gloomy Sunday.” One account says it was written shortly after Seress’s fiancée called off their engagement, another that he was concerned about the state of the world, which was in the grip of the Depression. The words told the story of a man whose beloved had died, and how he was considering suicide to be reunited with her; cheery stuff.
At first, some publishers rejected the opportunity to publish the sheet music, feeling it was just too … gloomy. But it was eventually published, and that’s when things got interesting. It is rumored that a string of suicides occurred over the next few years, all involving people who had heard the song. In 1933 a young man asked a band in a Budapest café to play it. After it was over, he went home and shot himself. If this story is true, he was probably planning on killing himself to begin with and just wanted a suitably depressing soundtrack for making his exit. It seems that by 1936 the song was connected to a wave of suicides in Hungary, and certain regions banned it. The story was taken seriously enough that Time magazine reported on it in March of that year.
Billie Holiday (who struggled with her own drug and alcohol problems) made an English-language recording of the song in 1941, and another example of its influence comes from London. A young woman was playing the song over and over on a gramophone. Hearing this, her neighbors knocked on her door, but she didn’t answer. Eventually they broke the door open to find her lying on the floor, dead from a drug overdose. Did the song make her do it?
The suicides didn’t stop there. One urban legend claims that over two hundred people have killed themselves listening to this song. Unfortunately, this astonishingly high number cannot be proven or dismissed. Various accounts claim that the situation was worrying enough to convince authorities to take action, but these claims have proven difficult to confirm. It is said that the Hungarian government discouraged the playing of the song, and several radio stations in the United States refused to play it, though there was no outright ban. The BBC considered similar actions in the 1940s, and one source states that the lyrics were deemed to be too upsetting for its audience, so only instrumental versions were broadcast. Maybe they feared a curse, but more likely they were worried that stories of the song causing suicides might actually encourage some listeners to take their own lives. One report says that the BBC did not lift this unofficial ban until 2002, but another says that it was played at least a few times in the 1980s. Again, stories conflict and the most fanciful tale usually wins out.
In any case, fear of the song lessened over time, but its composer was destined to suffer a tragic fate of his own. In 1968 he killed himself by jumping off a building in Budapest. Beyond this fact, the legends once again take over, with one story saying that he noted beforehand that he had never been able to write another hit song. In an unverifiable twist, the woman who had rejected him and inspired the song was reportedly found dead some time earlier, having killed herself by poisoning. Next to her was a piece of paper on which she had written “Gloomy Sunday.” Another version says it was the sheet music for the tune. Did the cursed song doom them both?
Tchaikovsky’s cursed symphony?
A newspaper story from early 1950 related that the conductor of the Nottingham Orchestra in England was cancelling all future performances of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony, because each time it was performed one of the orchestra members would die. In response, Johannes Norrby, the director of the Stockholm Concert Association, defiantly included the symphony in one of his own concerts to debunk the superstition. He confidently told reporters that the symphony “does not murder musicians.” It was performed that night without a problem, and the concert program moved on to Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony. During this piece, clarinetist Ludwig Warschewski, who had played with the Stockholm Symphony Orchestra for thirty years, collapsed and died on stage. Several doctors who were in the audience rushed to attend to him, but he could not be saved. See what happens when you tempt fate?
The Babe’s piano
Though it’s no longer an issue, since the Boston Red Sox have currently won three World Series since 2004, there was a persistent belief among some die-hard fans that there was a musical component to the “Curse of the Bambino.” The bad luck was brought about when Babe Ruth was traded from the Red Sox to the New York Yankees at the end of 1919, as a result of which the Sox didn’t win a World Series for eighty-six years.
While still playing with the Red Sox, Babe had rented a cabin in Sudbury, about twenty miles west of Boston near a body of water called Willis Pond. Versions of the story differ, but one says that during a certain winter night entertaining friends with his wife, Babe opened the doors to temporarily move his piano outside, not only to freshen up the room a bit but also to give them more space. Then disaster struck. In a scene straight out of a slapstick comedy, the piano slid out onto the ice of the pond and got stuck there. As the ice melted some time later, the piano simply sank to the bottom of the pond and lies there still. Another version of the story is that the whole party moved outside, piano and all, and then it got stuck in the ice. Locals believe it, and many elderly residents could recall Babe throwing some wild parties in those days.
Some of the superstitious sports fans—and honestly, most are pretty superstitious—came to believe that this unfortunate event was a bad omen. Ruth was traded soon after, beginning eight decades of baseball agony for Boston fans. For some time, these fans believed that if the piano could actually be raised from the pond, the curse would be lifted. A number of divers actually attempted to do this over the years, but they always had trouble locating it, prompting others to say that the story was just an urban legend.
It’s a moot point now, of course. But Babe’s cursed piano may yet lie at the bottom of the pond. If so, who knows what may happen if it’s ever retrieved?
The 27 Club
&n
bsp; Only the good die young. Well, the good, and rock and rollers, and jazz musicians. The origin of the term “27 Club” is obscure, but there is a curious coincidence among some popular performers of the last century: they lived fast, partied hard, and died at the young age of twenty-seven.
In an effort to shed light on the phenomenon, statisticians at Queensland University of Technology in Australia studied British artists who had number-one albums in the UK between 1956 and 2007, but found only three who died at that age. The researchers concluded in the British Medical Journal, “The study indicates that the 27 club has been created by a combination of chance and cherry picking.” However, they admitted that the number of fatalities might be greater in other countries. They did find that musicians who are more famous face as much as three times the risk as their less popular counterparts of dying young (in their twenties and thirties), due to poor lifestyle choices.
Whatever their conclusions, there are at least fifty “members” of this club, with new ones being added every few years. Here are some of the more famous examples:
Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911–August 16, 1938): an important blues guitarist and singer, credited by many later rock and roll musicians as a defining figure in the blues genre. Details of his life are not well known, but he died after consuming whiskey that may have been poisoned. One story tells that he was flirting with a married woman at an event and her jealous husband laced the drink with strychnine. Whatever the cause of his death, he had another legend attached to him: that he sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads to obtain his musical talent. He used to practice in a cemetery where it was quiet, which probably gave fuel to such Faustian rumors.
