Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, March 1924 · page 52 of 71
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #57 — page 52: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the clichéd conventions of early 20th-century popular songs. Walter G. Doty mocks how these sentimental ballads recycled identical emotional tropes: lost love in vague rural settings, interchangeable female names (Anna, Myrtle, Kate, Carry, Molly Gray), tragic separations, and melodramatic heartbreak. The humor lies in exposing how artists simply plugged different names and details into the same template, caring more about rhyme scheme than narrative coherence—"All depending on the rhyme." The chorus parodies the absurd imagery these songs stacked together: vacant chairs, turned-around photographs, ruined homes, and contradictory geography (Marguerite sleeping "down South in Maine"). For modern readers: this is essentially mocking the formulaic sentimentality of 1920s pop music the way we might mock contemporary bubblegum pop or melodramatic country songs—pointing out how interchangeable and emotionally manipulative they were.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Farmyard Fun and Filosofy 47 Life Birth. A day of joy, A day of sorrow. Friends today, Foes tomorrow. Clouds without a silver lining, Sweetness of a summer's breath, Castles wreck'd; Love repining; Winter's cold, Then death. Composite Popular Ballad (Written After a Surfeit of "Popular" Songs) By Walter G. Doty. Far away in old Montana Or Kentucky or some state, There I met my darling Anna Or my Myrtle or my Kate; And she died or else we parted In the gloaming long ago; And I wander broken-hearted— In the proper way, you know. Oh! she pined away, dear Carry, Adelaide or Molly Gray; Or she's raising the Old Harry In the city far away; And I never once suspected, Though her conduct was a crime; Or her stern old dad objected— All depending on the rhyme. CHORUS A vacant chair beside the grate where birds at evening call. A movie actor's picture with its face turned to the wall. A ruined home, united hearts, a deed that left a stain; And Marguerite is sleeping now away down South in Maine.