Musical Airs
Songs inspired by the early age of flight.
- By Rebecca Maksel
- AirSpaceMag.com, February 19, 2009
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Smithsonian Institution Libraries
In 1935, the New Yorker covered a small exhibition of Landauer’s sheet music at the Old Print Shop in New York City: “The oldest songs are mostly English, we found, and naturally they’re about balloons. The very oldest air song, published in London in 1782, is called ‘The Balloon’…. We thought the words of this insipid.” By 1908, English songwriters were scarcely more inspired, as the lyrics to “Up In My Balloon” show:
Little Bertie Van Lear says to Maudie De Vere,
I have good news I want you to share,
Now I’ve a balloon and there’s plenty of room,
So we’ll go for a ride in the air;
Do your hair in a rat, get your best sailor hat,
Be on deck, we must sail promptly at nine,
As the Captain and crew, I’ll take good care of you,
And I’ll show you a real high old time.
Little Maudie De Vere says to Bertie Van Lear,
As the big balloon slowly arose,
We’ve been courting you know now for two years or so,
And you’ve never yet tried to propose;
You’ve had me in the air, now that I’ve got you there,
You must promise that you’ll buy the ring,
If you don’t take my tip, then your airship I’ll rip,
So to no other girl you can sing.
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Comments (2)
I believe that, from the final sentence of this snippet from the song, you can interpret that the song's lyricist intended the title to be a shortening of something like, "My bomber and I fly high in the sky." Other than that, I'm a long time fan of this site. Keep up the great work!
Posted by Mike Burkholder on February 25,2009 | 01:27 AM
I'm not sure how my submitted comment of 2/25/09 lost its first lines but, in them, I disagreed with the author of this article. "My bomber and me" would be the grammatically incorrect form. If one were to use a pronoun rather than "My bomber and I" that pronoun would be "we" as in "We fly high in the sky." In the same vein, "My bomber and me" would need to be replaced with "us" which would result in the grammatically incorrect "Us fly high in the sky." Although it is the more colloquially popular, "X and me" followed by a verb is still grammatically incorrect. I stand with Jay Garside and his lyrics. I hope that this comment does not make me appear to be a grammar goon because I don't normally point out bad grammar but, when I see correct grammar being identified as being wrong, I feel compelled to respond. Thanks for your great website!
Posted by Mike Burkholder on February 28,2009 | 01:11 PM