Mail Order Songs

U. S. composers have yet to make a name for any great profundity. That the herd of them is, however, swift, timely, can scarcely be disputed. News songs now figure prominently in Tin Pan Alley. The most recent tells of the sinking of the Vestris.

Excerpts:

Proudly she sailed from New York City,

Bound for a Land o'er the sea;

And on her deck were wives and husbands and children with hearts gay and free;

They sailed on their way, o'er the deep blue ocean, never a thought of fear;

For there on the bridge stood Captain Carey a sailor for many a year:

There on the deck stood the gray haired captain, waiting for death to befall;

And tho we know that some one blundered we should forgive after all;

We're all adrift on life's mighty ocean, where each mistake has its cost.

And we should learn from this sad story if we hesitate we are lost.

First popularized by marshmallow-voiced soloists, recorded on Victor or Columbia disks, the news-songs filter into every part of the U. S. largely through the mail-order houses. "Little Marion Parker" as a phonograph record has been sold to more than 250,000 persons; as sheet music to some 50,000.

Excerpts:

She left her home one morning, for school not far away;

And no one dreamed that danger, could come to her that day;

And then a murd'rous villain, a fiend with heart of stone;

Took little Marion Parker, away from friends and home.

The world was horror stricken, and people held their breath;

Until they found poor Marion, her body cold in death;

And then they caught the coward, Young Hickman was their man;

They brought him back to justice, his final trial to stand.

Other ballads-with-a-moral for the mail-order circuit and Tin Pan Alley are "The Wreck of the Shenandoah," "The Death of Floyd Collins," more than 200 Lindbergh songs. Least melodic in title is "The Hall-Mills Case."

Excerpts:

In a little town in old New Jersey, lived a man whose name was Doctor Hall,

There he preached the Gospel to his people, and they learned to love him one and all.

But there was a mother whom he courted, one who had no right to share his love,

Every Sunday she sang in the choir, while he preached of Heaven up above.

No one knew that she would often meet him, no one knew their secret trysting place

And they did not heed the ten commandments, till they met their Master in disgrace.