Music Monday: Bedelia 1904
One hundred, twenty years ago, the Irish coon song serenade Bedelia was a number one song for the Haydn Quartet. According to TSort, this version of the song topped Billboard for eleven weeks. Written in 1903 by Jean Schwartz and William Jerome (Flannery), the song has been recorded many times by many singers.
Building songs around girls’ names has always been popular and this one may have been the most popular of this era. The sheet music bills the song as The Novelty Song of the Century and An Irish Coon Song Serenade. Coon songs were popular at the time but, steeped in racial stereotypes about African Americans. The song has more Irish influence than African American, so one assumes the publisher was trying to capitalize on the coon craze with the latter billing. The song was introduced by Blanche Ring playing the character of Liliandra in The Jersey Lily, which opened in September 1903. It was her first starring role on Broadway.
It is unclear who first recorded the song. Billy Murray [did a version that] went to #1. Considering his parents were Irish immigrants, it was fitting that Murray tackled the song, affecting a thick Irish accent to emphasize the song’s comedic nature. Murray’s was among four versions to chart in January 1904. It was quickly followed by a recording by the Haydn Quartet, which spent seven weeks at #1.
Cosmic-Observation 
January 30, 2024 at 4:00 AM
Ahhh, the good old days, when folks weren’t offended or triggered by the least thing. Al Jolson in blackface comes to mind, as well as The Little Rascals episodes.
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January 30, 2024 at 2:17 PM
People go out of their way to get offended these days. We have a society of bratty children with wet diapers. I was wondering, as I posted this, if some ass was going to do a drive-by in my comments.
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January 30, 2024 at 11:00 AM
Java Bean: “Ayyy, something tells me we will not be hearing this song on the radio any time soon!”
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January 30, 2024 at 2:19 PM
Most likely not, Bean. Well said…
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February 1, 2024 at 10:52 AM
Just a wild thought…I’m guessing the singer who passed long ago has been cancelled!
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February 2, 2024 at 1:01 AM
Most likely…and the songwriters, too.
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February 1, 2024 at 4:46 PM
Hipsters must LOVE this recording based on their new found love for albums and their inherent hiss – had a salesperson at Barnes and Noble waste 10 minutes of my time as he tried to bullshit me on how great albums are…sorry dude, I lived through those year and laughed all the way out of the store.
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February 2, 2024 at 1:07 AM
Those early recordings were pretty rough. I would think the hipsters would be horrified by the subject material.
You prefer CDs?
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February 2, 2024 at 1:10 AM
I am a CD guy, but with that said, my entire music collection is ripped to high bit rate mp3 and all my physical media is packed away. I still buy the physical CDs, just play them once to rip, take time to read the jackets and then never touched again.
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February 2, 2024 at 1:25 AM
That is quite the system. I started as a kid with 45s. Then, I got into cassettes. I still bought albums, too. I had a s*** load of them, ripping the music to my computers. MP3s are great for my phone.
I still have a deep love for analog album music and the ability to shift music back & forth in my head phones…or having some instruments in one ear and other instruments in the other ear. Digital doesn’t do that well…if at all. Led Zeppelin, for example, did the revolving sound.
I guess I am showing my early Gen-X age. HA!
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February 2, 2024 at 1:27 AM
A s*** load of CDs…I skipped the words, typing at 1:30am.
Goodnight…
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February 2, 2024 at 11:15 AM
I had a few 45s, but I really started out on my brothers’ 8-tracks – just a kid listening nonstop to Meatloaf, Zeppelin, Jackson Browne, Floyd, Aerosmith, Van Morrison or whatever I could get my hands on out of my brothers; collection – could splice tape when the players ate them by age 7…served me well when I hit the cassette years. My first car had an 8track player in it that I used a cassette to 8 track converter on hahaha. Those were the days…just wish I would have listened to my mother and turned the volume down a bit.
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February 2, 2024 at 3:14 PM
I had two 8-tracks and that was it. I got a cool stereo for my 12th birthday and it came with an Andy Gibb (Shadow Dancing) 8-track and I got one of my dad’s with 50s music on it. I never had a vehicle with an 8-track player in it.
I remember shoving kleenex into the hole on a cassette to record over it. I used to record radio programs and songs I liked, that I didn’t have.
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February 2, 2024 at 4:15 PM
Openly confess there has never been an Andy Gibb or other Gibb brother (or any sleeve with Travolta on the cover) in any of my music formats .. but did break down and marry an ABBA fan so somehow a Voulez-Vous got snuck in hehehe.
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February 2, 2024 at 9:34 PM
I wasn’t a big Andy Gibb fan. The 8-track was a gift….from a woman that turned out to be my dad’s mistress. My mom, OTOH, wanted to drive to Florida, jump over the wall and ravish Barry. LOL!
I will confess that I was in love with Grease. I begged my mom to buy me that album (time frames are the same).
I grew up loving ABBA. Never got the chance to see them in concert. I had that album at one time.
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February 3, 2024 at 4:26 PM
Ooops, stepped into a bad memory there.. apologies. I’ll just say I wouldn’t be allowed in the house if I had a Grease or ABBA album, but that was never gonna happen anyway – different times ha.
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February 3, 2024 at 9:24 PM
Oh. No. Not at all. I was too young to know all that. I learned about it as an adult. My parents had been divorced for 20 years when I got the data. And, the mistress committed suicide a year after the divorce. She was a messed up chick, I later learned.
So…no growing up around Grease/ABBA fans. Ha.
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February 5, 2024 at 12:52 PM
I could be around individuals that liked them…just now OWN any of their merch ha!
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February 5, 2024 at 12:52 PM
not, not now
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February 5, 2024 at 2:32 PM
LOL!
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