CHAPTER 10 | POPULAR SONG AND DANCE IN THE RAGTIME ERA 245
Tilzer uses a rag-derived syncopated motive to lend a slightly tentative quality
to the verse, underscoring Nellie’s fretfulness, which is shouldered aside by the
chorus’s confi dent arrival in striding, foursquare march time. Both the cover
illustration and the lyrics, with their absence of stage Negro dialect, leave no
doubt that Nellie and Joe are white. As the new century began, white Americans
were fi nding themselves beholden to blacks for music that seemed, more than
any other, to catch the modern spirit.IRVING BERLIN
Despite its mild syncopations, “Wait ’till the Sun Shines, Nellie” was not per-
ceived to be a ragtime song. In 1916 an observer wrote that in the early years
of the twentieth century “only songs having to do with the negro” were con-
sidered to be ragtime. A series of hit songs with African American characters
earned Irving Berlin a reputation during the 1910s as America’s chief ragtime
composer. After publishing several modestly successful ragtime songs, early in
1911 Berlin had his fi rst smash hit with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” which has
implied references to “the negro” (see below). But in his song “That Mysterious
Rag,” published that summer, no black persona is implied. Indeed, no black
characters appear in any of Berlin’s later ragtime songs. Moreover, from this
time on, Berlin used the word “sy ncopated” instead of “rag time” to describe h is
own songs in that vein. Syncopated songs soon came to symbolize the spirit of
liberation that appeared in New York societ y, both black and wh ite, and quick ly
spread elsewhere. And one mark of that new spirit was the craze for dancing.
In the second half of the nineteenth century most social dancing took place
either at private functions or in dives that encouraged illicit behavior. But start-
ing in the second decade of the 1900s, public dance halls opened in large num-
bers, and so did hotel ballrooms and dance fl oors in cafés, restaurants, and
cabarets. A fl ood of new dances fueled the explosion. While
dancing had formerly been an activity of learned steps,
the new dances—many of them infused with syncopa-
tion and bearing such “animal” names as the foxtrot, tur-
key trot, bunny hug, and grizzly bear—encouraged more
spontaneous movement. Women and men now began to
move their whole bodies to the beat. And many new songs
emphasized rhythm over melody. Popular music was now
an extension of dancing as well as singing, playing, and
listening.
Irving Berlin played a key role in this transformation.
Having emigrated with his family from Russia to New York
City at the age of fi ve in 1893, he grew up in a Jewish
neighborhood on the Lower East Side without much for-
mal education. W hile still a teenager, Berlin published
songs for which he wrote words, music, or both. Having
a sharp business sense as well as talent and tenacious-
ness, he won such success that after a dozen years in the
trade he established his own publishing fi rm, Irving Berlin
Music, Inc. (1919). Describing his working method, Berlin
once explained: “I get an idea, either a title or a phrase orK Irving Berlin (1888–
1989), photographed
between 1913 and 1919,
when he and Ted Snyder
were partners in the fi rm of
Berlin and Snyder, music
publishers on Tin Pan Alley.172028_10_231-253_r2_mr.indd 245 23/01/13 10:26 AM