A newspaper story out of Chicago, reprinted around the country in the summer of 1895, tells about the difficulties in capturing the true tones of a woman’s voice on the fragile wax cylinders that were then the state-of-the-art recording medium. One woman, a Miss Ollivier, was making a success of it, though, according to report. Her studio “is furnished with a piano, from which the entire front has been removed, so that the sounds therefrom may enter into the horn of the photograph, two phonograph, two horns of japanned tin about eighteen inches in diameter at the broad end, several storage batteries, by means of which he photographs are operated, and several tables which are burdened with sheet music of every kind.”
Every kind, indeed, even “the present New York craze, ‘Oh, How Wicked the Mormons Are.’”
Oh! How Wicked the Mormons Are!
Words and Music by Herbert H. Taylor ((Apparently a prolific lyricist/composer of sentimental songs, to judge by their titles: “Since Nellie Went Away,” “In the Wildwood Where the Bluebells Grew,” “She’ll Never Love You More than I,” “The Homeward Way,” “The Song that My Mother Sang to Me,” “I Love You Still, Marie,” “My Rose of Tennessee,” “When Love’s Dream Is Growing Old,” “My Sweetheart of Long Ago,” among others, all from the turn of the last century.))
Some folks talk about the Mormons, and I think it very sad
That they always try to make them all appear so very bad;
Married men oft think their wives are to them an awful bore,
And one wife is quite sufficient, but in Utah they want more.
Oh, how wicked the Mormons are,
Forty mammas to one papa,
But they think it’s proper, so there you are,
And they have lots of fun, do the Mormons.
Once a girl in Salt Lake City sprinkled with the garden hose,
Lifted up her skirts from danger, that is how the story goes;
Neighbors then all gazed with rapture at the garden, I suppose;
For they liked to see her sprinkle, and they liked to see the hose.
Oh, how wicked the Mormons are,
Forty mammas to one papa,
But they think it’s proper, so there you are,
And they have lots of fun, do the Mormons.
Tn these days of rapid transit, you will soon begin to feel
That there is no joy in living if you do not ride a wheel;
Pretty Mormon girls in bloomers often capture hearts by storm:
Though they wear them just for comfort, people say it’s proper form.
Oh, how wicked the Mormons are,
Forty mammas to one papa,
But they think it’s proper, so there you are,
And they have lots of fun, do the Mormons.
Indiana University provides the sheet music for you to join “the craze”:
.
.
.
.
It’s entirely possible that the, uh, “inspiration” for this ditty and its title/chorus came from the thin air of popular notions of the unpopular Mormons. But I wonder if it didn’t come from an 1855 speech by Brigham Young, an excerpt of which was – and still is – published over and over and over and over in the cherry-picked catalog of supposed Mormon awfulness:
Live here then, you poor, miserable curses, until the time of retribution, when your heads will have to be severed from your bodies. Just let the Lord Almighty say, “Lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet,” and the time of thieves is short in this community. What do you suppose they would say in old Massachusetts, should they hear that the Latter-day Saints had received a revelation or commandment to lay “judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet?” What would they say in old Connecticut? They would raise a universal howl of, “How wicked those ((The Journal of Discourses reads “those,” while the paragraph as reproduced in a number of anti-Mormon sources reads “the.”)) Mormons are; they are killing the evil doers who are among them; why I hear that they kill the wicked away up yonder in Utah.” They do not kill anybody down there, do they? [JoD 3:50]
But we think it’s proper, so there you are, and we have lots of fun, do we Mormons.
Oh, my goodness gracious!
Well this song was more risque than I was expecting …
Well, that was unexpected!
My knowledge of 19th century idioms is a bit weak, but a “plumb line,” a weighted string that hangs straight down, was used to measure a true vertical line, and that makes more sense that “plummet.” But then, I guess that maybe Isaiah knew what he was talking about (Isaiah 28:17)
These days, the sign that the “D.S.” tells you to go back to doesn’t usually look quite so much like a swastika. I suppose it’s a stylized letter “S” in either case, but this one was a bit surprising.
The first verse seems a rather mild anti statement, the second a risque observation that implies Mormon men are vouyers. OK. The last verse confuses me though. It appears to be about Morning women bicyclists wearing bloomers, but what does that have to do with wickedness?
Blast autocorrect!
I’m not sure, Eric — from what I can tell, bloomers were accepted bicycle wear long before this date.
You know what you’re talking about as well, kevinf. Your comment got me thinking, and sure enough Webster’s dictionary defines as:
“PLUM’MET, noun [See Plumb.]
1. A long piece of lead attached to a line, used in sounding the depth of water.
2. An instrument used by carpenters, masons, etc. in adjusting erections to a perpendicular line, and with a square, to determine a horizontal line. It consists of a piece of lead fastened to a line.
…”