Where did the expression "Jimmy Crack Corn originate?

Answer 1

It's a childrens song;
Jimmy crack corn,
and I don't care,
Jimmy crack corn
and I don't care, jimmy crack corn and i don't care, my masters gone away

Answer 2

Who is Jimmy, and why does he crack corn? --Nruggierbc, via AOL

Cecil replies:

I don't care. OK, so it's obvious. Sue me.

As you know from this column's previous attempts, song interpretation is not a science, and the passage of time hasn't made things any easier. A hundred years from now God knows what they'll make of "Stairway to Heaven." "Jimmy Crack Corn" (originally "Jim Crack Corn") tells the story of a slave whose job is "to wait on Massa and hand him de plate / Pass down de bottle when he git dry / And bresh away de blue-tail fly." Among the things he's supposed to bresh away de blue-tail fly from is Massa's pony, using a hickory broom. One day when the flies are especially thick, one gets through and bites . . . well, either Massa or the pony, you can't quite tell. Anyway, the pony bolts, Massa pitches into the ditch and dies, and the coroner's jury blames the blue-tail fly. "Jim[my] crack corn, I don't care / Ole Massa gone away."

Scratch around and you'll find some interesting takes on this song. When we consulted Tom Miller, Straight Dope curator of music, he told us about an interpretation he'd picked up from Charlie Maddox, a musician in Shenandoah, Virginia. Maddox said "crack corn" came from the old English term "crack," meaning gossip, and that "cracking corn" was a traditional Shenandoah expression for "sitting around chitchatting." Maddox claimed "Jimmy Crack Corn" was an abolitionist song, and that "blue-tail fly" referred to federal troops in their blue uniforms overthrowing the slave owners.

A conspicuous defect of this theory is that "Jimmy Crack Corn," published in 1846, is attributed to an outfit called the Virginia Minstrels. The Virginia Minstrels helped originate the blackface minstrel show, not one of your prime vehicles for abolitionist sentiment. The author of the song, though not definitely known, was probably a Virginia Minstrel named Daniel Emmett, a popular songwriter and musician whose best-known composition was the southern anthem "Dixie" (1859). Like his contemporary Stephen Foster, Emmett was a northerner who wrote sentimental songs about the south in black dialect. So don't go looking for any deep social message.

Still, who is Jimmy and why did he crack corn? Maybe it's about gossip, like the man said. But an equally plausible theory I've heard is that "cracking corn" means cracking open a jug of corn liquor. Try it next time your Massa goes away, and after a half dozen verses you won't care either.

--CECIL ADAMS

Answer 3

Jimmy crack corn is sort of like a phrasal verb: you can explain what each part of it means, but that doesn't necessarily mean you know what the sum means when you put the parts together.

To crack corn is to break or crush it into pieces. It's an American expression that's been around since at least the late 18th century. Jimmy is young James or familiar James or "just call me Jimmy." So some guy called Jimmy was cracking corn.

Exactly. This gets us nowhere in a hurry.

The song entitled "Jim Crack Corn" was written in 1846. (That extra beat after the syllable "Jim" probably led people to start singing "Jimmy" fairly early on.) It was published by the Virginia Minstrels, and was probably written by the northerner Daniel Emmett, who wrote a lot of the songs for their blackface minstrel show. Of the many fake-dialect tunes he wrote about the south, "Dixie" is the most famous, which has to hurt if you're from the south.

For those of you who didn't have the benefit of learning this song as a child: it's a story told from a slave's point of view about how his master died from the sting of one blue-tail fly that managed to get him despite the slave's vigilant fly-brushing efforts.

Most of the theories about who Jimmy is and what he's really doing agree that whatever he's doing, the slave doesn't care about it because his master is gone. Whether he's gleefully carefree or woefully despondent is a point of dispute, depending a bit on which of the two main theories you subscribe to:

1."Cracking corn" is opening a bottle of corn liquor; the phrase is self-referential and means "I'm Jimmy, I'm upset, I'm drinking, and I don't care." Well, that sense of crack is certainly old enough, but I can't find any evidence of "corn" being used independently of the phrases "corn liquor" or "corn juice." And if Jimmy is really talking, why use "I" in the second part of the sentence, but be Bob Dole-like in the first part?

2."Cracking corn" really is crushing corn, and it means that someone named Jimmy, presumably a fellow slave, had to start grinding corn for food because of the penury visited on him after the master's death. This is as plausible as any other piece of speculation, but it's not a satisfactory answer to who Jimmy is and why he suddenly turns up in the refrain.

The use of Jim as a form of address is attested in Black English, but no earlier than 1899--although we can assume the use predated the writer Countee Cullen's recording of it. There's the term jim-cracker, meaning 'someone with remarkable skill', that was first recorded in 1834. It could well be that Daniel Emmett just put "jim-cracker" and "cracking corn" together as a bit of doggerel because it sounded nice and southern.

The song entitled "Jim Crack Corn" was written in 1846. It was published by the Virginia Minstrels, and was probably written by the northerner Daniel Emmett, who wrote a lot of the songs for their blackface minstrel show.

Of the many fake-dialect tunes he wrote about the south, "Dixie" is the most famous, which has to hurt if you're from the south.

Here is the song "Jim Crack Corn":

When I was young I us’d to wait
On Massa and hand him de plate;
Pass down de bottle when he git dry,
And bresh away de blue tail fly.

Chorus:

Jim crack corn I don’t care,
Jim crack corn I don’t care,
Jim crack corn I don’t care,
Ole Massa gone away.

Den arter dinner massa sleep,
He bid dis ****** vigil keep;
An’ when he gwine to shut his eye,
He tell me watch de blue tail fly.

Chorus:

An’ when he ride in de artenonn,
I foller wid a hickory broom;
De poney being berry shy,
When bitten by de blue tail fly.

Chorus:

One day he rode aroun’ de farm,
De flies so nummerous dey did swarm;
One chance to bite ’im on the thigh,
De debble take dat blue tail fly.

Chorus:

De poney run, he jump an’ pitch,
An tumble massa in de ditch;
He died, an’ de jury wonder’d why
De verdic was de blue tail fly.

Chorus:

Dey laid ’im under a ’simmon tree,
His epitaph am dar to see:
’Beneath dis stone I´m forced to lie,
All by de means ob de blue tail fly.

Chorus:

Ole massa gone, now let ’im rest,
Dey say all tings am for de best;
I nebber forget till de day I die,
Ole massa an’ dat blue tail fly.

Chorus: