Blue Tail Fly

"Blue Tail Fly", "De Blue Tail Fly", or "Jimmy Crack Corn" is a blackface minstrel song, first performed in the United States in the 1840s, which remains a popular children's song today.

Related Topics:
Blackface - Minstrel - United States - Children's song

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Over the years, many variants of text have appeared, but the basic narrative remains intact. On the surface, the song is a black slave's lament over his master's death. The song, however, has a subtext of rejoicing over that death, and possibly having caused it by deliberate negligence. {{ref|subtext}} Most versions at least nod to idiomatic Black English, though sanitized, grammatically "correct" versions predominate today.

Related Topics:
Slave - Subtext - Idiom - Black English

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The blue-tail fly of the song is probably a Southern variant of the horsefly, which feeds on the blood of animals such as horses and cattle, as well as humans, and thus constitute a prevalent pest in agricultural regions. Some horseflies have a blue-black abdomen, hence the name.

Related Topics:
Fly - Southern - Horsefly - Horse - Cattle - Pest - Abdomen

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