The Soundtrack of Mark Twain

    The following are four songs ranging in dates from 1876 to 1917 having some relationship with Mark Twain and his works. They are entitled, “Punch! Brothers, Punch!” “The Mark Twain Mazurka,” “The Huckleberry Finn Cakewalk” and “Huckleberry Finn.” Spanning both popular and classical genres of the time, these songs give some insight into how Mark Twain’s work and image were received by his contemporary culture, particularly the musical world. The songs are all fairly lighthearted and humorously nostalgic.

    A similar project was recently released by pianist John Davis with his CD entitled, “Halley’s Comet: Around the Piano with Mark Twain and John Davis.” However, the purposes and functions that these projects perform are quite different, as this one seeks specifically to understand Mark Twain’s cultural influence and how he was seen by others in his time.

    All four songs were performed by me and recorded at the Virginia Arts Studio in Charlottesville, VA. They are available here in .mp3 format.
    ©2010 Barbara Wheeler.

    The words to this short waltz came from a short story with the same name published by Mark Twain, in which a little newspaper jingle haunts him because he is unable to erase it from his head. The cover art proclaims it to be “Mark Twain’s Nightmare,” which apparently led many people to believe that the words were written by Mark Twain himself. However, two editorials in the New York Times were devoted to clarifying that Mark Twain never wrote – and never tried to say that he wrote – the jingle himself. Interestingly, the editorials appeared in 1915 – on August 3 and August 8. This was five years after the death of Samuel Clemens, proving that the song and the story were still garnering the interest and enthusiasm of the public. The words of the jingle were actually written by Isaac Bromley, Noah Brooks, W.C. Wyckoff, and Moses W. Handy.
    The song, because it is based on a comical story, is important because it shows that the public was very interested in Mark Twain as a humorist. Nowadays, there are many different portrayals of who Mark Twain was and what he meant and continues to mean to the American public. This song serves to remind people that he was, first and foremost in America’s mind, a humorist.
    A very different version of this song can also be heard at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/smhtml/audiodir.html.

       

    A mazurka is a type of Polish folk dance characterized by three-quarter time. The second beat of the measure is usually the strong beat of each measure.* They became popular in America beginning in the 1840s, particularly because Frédéric Chopin made them famous by publishing fifty-eight.* Written in three-quarter time, with a very pronounced second beat, this song is very typical of mazurkas. Although it is certainly entertaining, the song itself really has very little to do with Mark Twain.
    Although groups of Chopin’s mazurkas are dedicated to certain people, the individual songs are not named for people; rather, they are organized by number and key signature. It appears from the large picture of Mark Twain on the front that he is there merely for the purpose of selling more sheet music. This is significant because it shows that in 1880 – several years before the publication of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain was already a household name and marketing tool.
    The cover art is also interesting for two other reasons. The image of Mark Twain used on the cover is a young Mark Twain whom few Americans today would recognize as the same man in the white suit with white hair. Furthermore, the cover art features scenes from two books that are rarely read today – Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad and Roughing It. The cover art and the sheet music it is used to sell show a somewhat different Mark Twain than the one that Americans are most familiar with: a young Twain as humorist and travel writer whose mere image sells music.

       

    The cakewalk, a dance in which the winner received a cake, was believed to have originated on Southern plantations by African-American slaves. Later, it was popularized in blackface minstrel shows, vaudeville and burlesque and white audiences watched it performed. There were no specific steps to the dance, although it was performed in a promenade-style with marching and grandiose motions, meant to parody the white plantation owners’ stiff dancing style.*
    The “Huckleberry Finn Cakewalk” is also a typical example of cakewalks, and the listener can notice a promenading style to it particularly in the second to last section of the piece.
    Seeing the cover art for this dance says much about the state of race relations at the time and the way that many white Americans objectified black Americans for entertainment purposes. The controversy over whether or not Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a racist novel continues to this day. That a songwriter saw fit to name a cakewalk after the protagonist does not speak well for how the book was received in its day. Certainly if it was seen as an anti-racist novel, its name was not synonymous with anti-racism like other stories, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

           

    The latest of these songs, “Huckleberry Finn” expresses a nostalgic desire to return to childhood and particularly to boyhood – which is why it is so interesting that the piece itself is written in the treble clef, most easily sung by a female. A man would have to sing an octave lower than what is written. Furthermore, these kinds of songs were written for private usage, and were most likely played by women, who were often taught the basics of piano and voice. (Note the hand-written name on the cover, “Hazel Cole,” presumably the woman or girl who originally owned the music.)
    This song is significant because it, too, gives an example of how Huck Finn was seen to early audiences. It seems to suggest that people saw it not so much as a treatise on race or conscience but as a nostalgic and fun story that even – or perhaps especially – women in 1917, who had not yet been granted the right to vote, could relate to.

   

    In conclusion, these songs give the listener an idea of what Mark Twain’s contemporary audience thought of him and of his work. Certainly one might get some idea of what his audience thought of him by looking at contemporary critical reviews of his work. But critics are not the general public, and it is often the case that the two groups often have different ideas about the same works.

    This is not to say that public opinion necessarily has the final say in what a story is about. Certainly there have been plenty of writers who have been misunderstood by critics and audiences alike; furthermore, these songs do not settle anything when it comes to the many controversies regarding Mark Twain. However, it does add to and complicate and add to the picture of who Mark Twain was. These songs and their accompanying art project an image of Twain who is young, humorous, nostalgic, and fun. At the same time they also project an image of Twain that may not be as enlightened on racial matters as many would like to see him, while not really settling anything on that issue.

    As I was practicing and recording these songs, I was particularly struck by how much fun they were, even after practicing them weekly for a sixteen week semester. Singing about how I wished that I was Huckleberry Finn felt absolutely ridiculous and yet sincerely enjoyable. As complex as Twain is, I think these songs remind America that he was, first and foremost, a source of pleasure for a nation. As I listen to these pieces I feel a little nostalgic for what it would have been like to have lived in a time in which the Mark Twain soundtrack was the soundtrack to your life.