The Yama Yama Man

"The Yama Yama Man"
From The Three Twins

Cover, sheet music, 1908
Music by Karl Hoschna
Lyrics by Collin Davis
Published M. Witmark & Sons
Performed by Bessie McCoy

"The Yama Yama Man" was a theatrical song published in 1908 by M. Witmark & Sons with music by Karl Hoschna and lyrics by Collin Davis.[1][2] It was made popular by Bessie McCoy's performance in the show The Three Twins (1908), in which she wore a satin Pierrot clown costume with floppy gloves and a cone hat. At age 20, she became an overnight sensation on Broadway and was known thereafter as the "Yama Yama Girl"; it was her lifelong theme song.[3] The lyrics contain topical references of the era such as street cars and ladies fashion while the refrain is about a comical bogeyman—the Yama Yama Man—who is "ready to spring out at you unaware". Bessie McCoy's song and dance routine was a standard into the 1930s, with imitators including Ada Jones, Marilyn Miller, Irene Castle and Ginger Rogers.

Contents

Origin

The July 25, 1908 edition of Billboard magazine reported the following story how the Yama song came about.[4] When The Three Twins was rehearsing in Chicago, prior to first opening, Karl Hoschna, the composer, was asked to furnish a "pajama man song".[4] He wrote one called The Pajama Man only to learn that it could not be used owing to another pajama number booked at the Whitney Opera the next day.[4] Gus Sohlke, the stage director, happened to pass a toy store and saw in the window a doll built out of triangles.[4] Realizing that this had never been used in stage work he decided to have a triangular man chorus in place of The Pajama Man. That afternoon as he, Collin Davis and Hoschna sat together wondering what they would call the song, Sohlke kept repeating Pajama jama yama yama.[4] Suddenly he brightened up and cried "Did either of you fellows ever hear of a Yama Yama Man?" Of course neither one had and Sohlke confirmed "Neither have I! Lets call the new song Yama Yama Man".[4] Quickly Davis set to work to write a lyric around the title and that night Sohlke and Hoschna locked themselves in a room with Bessie McCoy and rehearsed the Yama song and dance for five hours.[4]

Bessie McCoy's signature performance was key in establishing the song's popularity, Nell Brinkley, who saw McCoy perform, described her thus:

"..she swings on her heel and leaps away into a wild fantastic headlong dance—the dance of a crazy king's clown, half girl, half wild boy, heady with the wine of the Spring air at twilight… The black satin of her bloomers fills like sails, and they ripple and flatten against her body. Her hair flies in loose flax around her face, and her face is a vivid white candle flame in the yellow aureole of her hair… Her feet might be bounding white balls carrying her body with them in their tireless, leaping flight. She circles madly around the boards, touching lightly and rebounding from the jutting points of the painted mock scenery, like an imprisoned moth, or an elf hunting for some lost thing and fearful of being caught. She is wonderful."[5]

Influences

Ada Jones recorded "Yama Yama Man" in 1909 for Victor Light Opera Company.[6] The lyrics for verse two and three were changed, verse two being more bawdy.[7] It spent five weeks at #1 in 1909 and was the most popular song of her career.[8]:

In 1909, the young dancer Irene Foote began imitating Bessie McCoy's "Yama Yama Man" in amateur theatricals.[9] Irene's mother would take her around to Broadway producers auditioning her talent using the Yama routine, but with little success.[9] Irene later had a successful career in modern dance with her husband Vernon Castle and in 1939 Ginger Rogers played Irene in the biographical film The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, in which Rogers re-enacts Irene imitating Bessie McCoy's "Yama Yama Man" routine.[8][10]

In Warner's Look For The Silver Lining (1949), June Haver plays Marilyn Miller imitated Ginger Rogers imitating Irene Foote imitating Bessie McCoy doing the Yama Yama Man.[11]

The song lead to a spin off children's novel Yama Yama Land (1909) by Grace Duffie Boylan.[12] Francis Scott Fitzgerald briefly mentioned it in The Beautiful and Damned (1922).[13]

Lyrics

1.
Ev'ry little tot at night,
Is afraid of the dark you know.
Some big Yama man they see,
When off to bed they go.

Refrain:
Yama, Yama, the Yama man,
Terrible eyes and a face of tan.
If you don't watch out he'll get you without a doubt,
If he can.
Maybe he's hiding behind the chair,
Ready to spring out at you unaware.
Run to your mama,
For here comes the Yama Yama man.

2.
Great big scary eyes you see,
So you cover up your head.
But that Yama man is there,
Standing right beside your bed.

Refrain

3.
In the theater now today,
Ev'ry girl takes off her hat.
But that doesn't help a bit,
For you can't see 'round her rat.

Refrain

4.
Mister Harriman to-day,
Thinks he'll have to change his dish.
Fridays he says he'll stick to meat,
For he's getting sick of "Fish".

Refrain

5.
Lady coming up the street,
Holds her skirt up with hands so deft.
To do this she has a perfect right,
And she also has a darn good left.

Refrain

6.
The "Pay-as-you-enter" car,
Is the brightest scheme evolved.
They can't Miss a nickle now,
So the traction questions solved.

Refrain

Meaning of lyrics

It is quite some time since the trial and approval of the "pay-as-you-enter cars," and I fail to see why they have not been introduced on the Broadway line. A strong public sentiment favors these new and up-to-date cars, since they not only gather in the nickels, but they do away with crowding, shoving, jamming, and the abominable nuisance of the conductor, who used to throw people down and step over them in his eagerness to gather the coin that he paid over, or did not pay over, to the car companies.[18]

References

  1. ^ Stanley Green. Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre, Da Capo Press, Mar 22, 1980, pg. 456
  2. ^ "Collin Davis" was the pen name used by George Collins Davis (1867-1929), a lawyer who later helped frame the Fordney-Mccumber Tariff law, for his lyrics for musical shows.
  3. ^ Eve Golden. Vernon and Irene Castle's ragtime revolution, University Press of Kentucky, Nov 30, 2007, pg. 28
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Billboard, July 25, 1908, pg. 8
  5. ^ Langford, Gerald (1961), The Richard Harding Davis Years, New York: Holt, Rinehart And Winston, p. 263, LCCN 61-5801 
  6. ^ Ada Jones & Victor Light Opera Company - The Yama Yama Man 1909, Internet Archive
  7. ^ Ada Jones extra lyrics:
    Verse two:
    The Johnnies they go to see the play,
    But they don't care for the plot.
    They want to see if all the girls,
    Are wearing much or not.
    Verse three:
    A man sold some powder good for bugs,
    But the man he must have lied.
    It wasn't good for bugs at all,
    The poor little bugs all died.
  8. ^ a b “The Yama Yama Man”, Netlex News, July 5, 2006.
  9. ^ a b Iris Fanger, "Castle" in Notable American women: the modern period : a biographical dictionary, Volume 4, editors Barbara Sicherman, Carol Hurd Green, Harvard University Press, 1980. See pg. 142.
  10. ^ Video of Ginger Rogers performing Yama Yama Man, from the film The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), hosted at Turner Classic Movies. Archived version at Internet Archive.
  11. ^ Arlene Croce. The Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers book, Vintage Books, 1977. Pg. 156.
  12. ^ The Publishers Weekly, Volume 76, Part 1. August 7, 1909. Advert for Reilly and Britton. pg. 287
  13. ^ Francis Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned, Scribner, 1922. Pg. 144
  14. ^ Everybody's Magazine, Volume 19, North American Co., 1908. Pg. 683
  15. ^ "Hair Rats", Pin Girl.
  16. ^ Life magazine, Jul 9, 1956. "A Big Bulge in Hair". Pg. 59
  17. ^ Carl Snyder, "Harriman: Colossus of Roads", in The American Monthly Review of Reviews, January 1907, Volume 35. Pg. 37.
  18. ^ New York Times: LOUIS M. FISHER. New York, April 26, 1909.

External links