Juice of the Forbidden Fruit, Composed and Sung by John T. Thorne of Thorne & Williams
Very good. Undated, but c. 1884. Single sheet, 4.5 x 11 in, with creases from folding, a few chips and pinholes, mild staining. Rare early (first?) version of a popular American drinking song, in which Adam and Eve appear as the first tipplers, "and ever since then, all manner of men/The lame, the blind, and the mute/Our bankers and clerks, politicians and turks/Drink the juice of the Forbidden Fruit." This chorus is followed by a litany of public figures who imbibe, including Edwin Booth, [Henry Ward] Beecher, President Arthur, Frank James, Bob Ford, Oscar Wild[e], General Grant, Roscoe Conkling, and [James G.] Blaine. The names varied over time, but the song remained in circulation for many decades and was recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax in the 1950s. Lomax identified it as originating in the Ozarks, but by the turn of the century the song was sufficiently widespread to make an appearance in Jack London's story "The Man on the Trail, A Klondike Christmas," published in the Overland Monthly in January 1899. This edition not located in OCLC. Two institutions hold a slightly different but contemporaneous version, published in New York and attributed to Sam Devane.
Item #14135
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