The Little Lost Child
Encyclopedia
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
following its promotion as the first ever illustrated song
Illustrated songs
An illustrated song is a type of performance art and was a popular form of entertainment in the early 20th century in the United States.Live performers and music recordings were both used by different venues to accompany still images projected from glass slides...
, an early precursor to the music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
. The song was also known by its first three words: "A Passing Policeman." The song's success has also been credited to its performance with enthusiasm by Lottie Gilson
Lottie Gilson
Lottie Gilson was a popular comedienne and vaudeville singer born in 1871 in Pennsylvania who died in New York in 1912.She was known as "The Little Magnet" in recognition of her considerable abilities to boost sheet music sales during the 1880s and 1890s....
and Della Fox
Della Fox
Della May Fox was an American singing comedienne, whose popularity peaked in the 1890s when the diminutive Fox appeared opposite the very tall De Wolf Hopper in several musicals. She also toured successfully with her own company.-Biography:Fox was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of...
.
Marks was a button salesman who wrote rhymes and verse, and Stern a necktie salesman who played the piano and wrote tunes. Together they formed a music publishing house called Joseph W. Stern & Co. and became an important part of the Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
sheet music publishing scene. Marks wrote the lyrics about a lost little girl found by a policeman, who goes on to find the girl's mother, who turns out to be the policeman's estranged wife; Stern wrote the music for piano and vocals. Joseph W. Stern & Co. "started their career in a little basement at 314 East Fourteenth Street with a 30-cent sign and a $1 letter box, which to say the least was not large capital even in those days..."
The promoting
Promotion (marketing)
Promotion is one of the four elements of marketing mix . It is the communication link between sellers and buyers for the purpose of influencing, informing, or persuading a potential buyer's purchasing decision....
innovation that made "The Little Lost Child" significant to cultural history was an idea in the mind of George H. Thomas even earlier, in 1892. A production of The Old Homestead
The Old Homestead
The Old Homestead is a 1935 American romantic western musical film directed by William Nigh.-Cast:*Mary Carlisle ... Nancy Abbott*Lawrence Gray ... Bob Shackleforth*Willard Robertson ... Uncle Jed*Dorothy Lee ... Elsie Wilson...
at Brooklyn's Amphion Theater, where Thomas was chief electrician, featured the song "Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight?" illustrated by a single slide of a young man in a saloon. Thomas's idea was to combine a series of images (using a stereopticon) to show a narrative while it was being sung. He approached Stern and Marks about illustrating "The Little Lost Child." Lyrics appeared toward the bottom of the images. The first performance went poorly due to upside-down images of inappropriate size and placement, but these technical difficulties were soon corrected. The illustrated song technique proved so enduring it was still being used to sell songs before movies and during reel changes in movie theaters as recently as 1937 when some color movies had already begun to appear.
Stern retired in 1920, and his firm became the Edward B. Marks Music Company, which published a string of hits such as "Strange Fruit
Strange Fruit
"Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who released her first recording of it in 1939, the year she first sang it. Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it exposed American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had occurred...
" by Abel Meeropol
Abel Meeropol
Abel Meeropol was an American writer and song-writer, best known under his pseudonym Lewis Allan and as the adoptive father of the young sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.-Biography:...
(and made famous by Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
) in 1939 and has been a subsidiary of Carlin America
Carlin America
Carlin America is an independent music publishing conglomerate with a catalog of over 100,000 titles. The company, created under its current name in 1995 by its founder Freddy Bienstock is headquartered on East 38th Street in Manhattan.Its songs include...
since 1980.
"The Little Lost Child" was the first of several hit songs Marks and Stern wrote together as well as the first of several their company published, but it became a true sensation and was well-remembered several decades later. Billboard magazine
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
noted the song's importance in their "honor roll" in 1949, and the song was included in the Fireside Book of Favorite American Songs in 1952.
Lyrics and sheet music
The song's composition employed a strophic formStrophic form
Strophic form is the simplest and most durable of musical forms, elaborating a piece of music by repetition of a single formal section. This may be analyzed as "A A A..."...
with a chorus. The sentimental lyrics comprised a narrative set to music, a new style in the 1890's.
First verse:
A passing policeman found a little child,
She walked beside him, dried her tears and smiled.
Said he to her kindly now you must not cry,
I will find your ma-ma for you bye and bye.
At the station when he asked her for her name,
And she answered Jennie, it made him exclaim:
"At last of your mother, I have now a trace,
Your little features bring back her sweet face."
Chorus:
Do not fear, my little darling, and I will take you home.
Come sit down close beside me, no more from me you shall roam.
For you were a babe in arms, when your mother left me one day.
Left me at home, deserted, alone, and took you, my child, away.
External links
- Tear Jerkers of the Not-So-Gay Nineties Treasure LP-408 (196?) track 6 George JesselGeorge Jessel (actor)George Albert Jessel was an American illustrated song "model," actor, singer, songwriter, and Academy Award-winning movie producer. He was famous in his lifetime as a multitalented comedic entertainer, achieving a level of recognition that transcended his limited roles in movies...
- Bristol Sessions. Vol 2, Country Music Foundation (1927) track 22:A Passing Policeman Johnson Brothers
- Music Video 1900 style videos of other early illustrated songs on "PBS Kids Go!PBS Kids GO!PBS Kids GO! is an educational television brand used by PBS for programs intended for older children, rather than the original PBS Kids. It is primarily broadcast on PBS stations during the afternoons...
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