Die Blue Tail Fly, auch bekannt als Jim Crack Corn, folgt den Lebenskonventionen im Antebellum South. Die Musiknoten, dated 1846, stammen von einem amerikanischen Lied, das erstmals während des Aufstiegs der Blackface Minstrelsy in den 1840er Jahren durch Auftritte der Virginia Minstrels populär wurde..
Die meisten Versionen enthalten etwas idiomatisches afroamerikanisches Englisch, obwohl allgemeine amerikanische Versionen jetzt vorherrschen.
Es wurde gesagt, dass dieses Lied ein Lieblingslied des sehr berühmten und großen Amerikaners Abraham Lincoln war.
The basic narrative remains intact. On the surface, the song is a black slave’s lament over his white master’s death in a horse-riding accident. The song, however, is also interpreted freely.
When I was young, I used to wait On my olé master and hold his plate, Pass down the bottle when he got dry And brush away the blue tail fly Jimmy, crack corn, I don't care Jimmy, crack corn and I don't care Jimmy, crack corn and I don't care My master's gone away And when he'd ride in the afternoon I'd follow him, with a hickory broom The pony being rather shy When bitten by the blue tail fly … Ref. One day, he ride around the farm The flies so numerous, they did swarm One chanced to bite him on the thigh The devil take the blue tail fly … Ref. The pony run, he jumped, he flitched He threw my master in a ditch He died and the jury wondered why The verdict was the blue tail fly … Ref. They laid him under a 'simmon tree On his epitaph was there to reed "Beneath this stone, I'm forced to lie A victim of the blue tail fly" … Ref.