CHAPTER 7 | POPULAR SONGS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 181
glamour—Tin Pan Alley’s ultimate goal remained the same as that of publishers
and song writers in the day of Stephen Foster and George F. Root: to sell sheet
music to home performers in quantities as large as possible.
The variety of song types sung on American stages around the turn of the
century was enormous: airs from opera and operetta, Victorian parlor songs,
Tin Pan Alley numbers of every description, songs in foreign languages, songs
from blackface entertainment, even religious songs. Each carried its own style of
singing. Moreover, performers had their own techniques and mannerisms, and
many stars owed their fame to a personal way of approaching songs. As in earlier
days, popular songs were performers’ music: outlines to be fi lled in according to
each performer’s personality and skill.
For all their variety, however, the top-selling songs of the era have certain
traits in common. Most are in major keys and share a familiar musical form:
a brief piano introduction, followed by a verse (sometimes in the minor) and a
chorus. Many are waltzes, most were published in New York, and with the occa-
sional English exception, all are American in origin. They explore a wider range
of moods than the era’s popular nickname, the Gay Nineties, might imply. The
cautionary theme of “After the Ball” is echoed more lightheartedly in “The Bow-
ery” (1892), which warns of the dangers lurking in a notorious New York district
where “they say such things, and they do strange things.” Other songs reveal
glimpses of life in Irish neighborhoods, as in “T he Band Played On” (1895), “Sweet
Rosie O’Grady” (1896), and “My Wild Irish Rose” (1899).
“After the Ball” is only one of many songs that deal with the separations of
sweethearts, often by death. Perhaps the most unusual parted-lovers song is Paul
Dresser’s “My Gal Sal” (1905), in which death cuts short an unusual friendship.
As described by the song’s persona, “Jim,” Sal was a person of mature years and
plenty of experience:
They called her frivolous Sal,
A peculiar sort of a gal,
With a heart that was mellow,
An all ’round good fellow,
Was my old pal;
Your troubles, sorrows, and care,
She was always willing to share,
A wild sort of devil,
But dead on the level,
Was my gal Sal.
The kind of woman a man would describe in the language of male comrade-
ship is rare in Tin Pan Alley song. But then, “My Gal Sal” rejects the romantic
conventions that ruled the day’s songs about women. We never learn why some
called her frivolous, or why Jim hails her as wild, though excessive drinking and
extramarital sex are implied. By Tin Pan Alley’s code of conduct, these are signs
of depraved character in a woman. But the song treats “old pal” Sal’s behavior as
if it were that of a man, who might not be condemned for such appetites.
The earthiness of “My Gal Sal” would have been rare in a Tin Pan Alley song a
decade earlier. It was not that songs had previously ignored the possibility of sex
outside marriage; rather, songs touching the subject treated their female charac-
ters as fatally stained. Between the Civil War and 1890, Edward Marks observed,
“sniffl y songs for the strayed sister, whom her virtuous co-females delighted toK As the cost of
photographic images
declined, pictures of
professional singers such
as Rita Redmond were
used more and more to
plug sheet music editions
of songs such as this well-
known hit.song typestraits of hit songs172028_07_162-182_r3_ko.indd 181 23/01/13 10:19 AM