I've wondered about this tune for some years since (as I mentioned
before) I have a 58-note organ roll of it under the title "La Mattchiche"
and also a Columbia celluloid cylinder with the title "La Sorella" which
I keep on my Columbia phono to play for visitors. The cylinder sounds
about the same as the Columbia 78 recently referenced on YouTube.
There are snippets of information scattered around the Internet, and
several images of sheet music, but I finally came across one site
that makes sense: http://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/maxixe.htm
There is even a reference on that site to the Titanic (is that where
the scriptwriter got the idea for the musical pig?)
Now the remaining question is when were the words added, by whom, and
why the reference to chewing gum? But presumably that happened decades
after 1905.
Alan Douglas
[ Eh? The musical pig actually traveled aboard the Titanic and
[ then in the lifeboat. It's a fact, not a script writer's fantasy!
[ "La Mattchiche", with French words, is only one of several
[ incarnations featuring the same infectious melody. An earlier
[ version with Spanish couplets appeared in a Spanish zarzuela,
[ "Los Inocentes", of 1895. "Choo'n Gum", with English words
[ ("My ma gave me a nickel to buy a pickle") was a song of the late
[ 1940s sung to the same melody. The true composer remains uncertain.
[ Ref. http://www.ernestonazareth150anos.com.br/posts/index/22
[ http://www.dutempsdescerisesauxfeuillesmortes.net/fiches_bio/mayol/mayol.htm
[ http://www.dutempsdescerisesauxfeuillesmortes.net/fiches_bio/mayol/matchiche_canada.htm
[ -- Robbie
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