GRAND OPERA AND POPULAR TASTE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2793, 4 October 1924, Page 1

GRAND OPERA AND POPULAR TASTE.

“THE JEWEL SONG” V. “HORSEY KEEP YOUR TAIL UP.” U is in keeping with the contrarily of human nature that at a time when the taste of playgoers is being trained to appreciate (lie best that is available in the world of song by the performance by world-fam-ous artists of the great operatic mastorpieees we should find a leading- music, publishing firm of Australia, tempting the populace with a •song bearing such a title as “Horsey Keep Your Tail Up,” and not half-a-dozen steps away from beautiful portraits of Toti Dal Monte in her various roles do we find a striking window display of the song mentioned. A sane level-headed Australian landed in New York twelve months ago to find Broadway whistling “Yes, We Have Xo Bananas” —the shock was too great: he wrote in despair to a Sydney Friend, “Whatever is the world coming to? It just seems to be turned upside down, for no matter where I go T hear notliing but “Yes We Have Xo Bananas.” X’ow from America, the home of Jazz, comes a new epochmaking Hit entitled “Horsey Keep Your Tail Up.” This meteoric success has also trotted over to England, sober, sensible, sedate England—and the latest cables tell us that all London is mad over “Horsey,”

Why should England, above all countries, capitulate to “Horsey Keep Your Tail Up?” It is because die world-famous London bus horses are now a thing *> f die past and the general inlluence of the j Royal Humane Society for the pre j year ion of cruelly to animals lmso permeated 1 lit* general public dial they have seized this opportunity of immortalising their pa si servants. Now that the horse-lms is superseded by the motor-bus. it is tiding dial we should sing praises of our equestrian friends and show them that they arc not altogether useless, for, so the song says, their tails “will keep the sun out of our eyes/' I was reading an over-seas Music Trade Publication die other day and noticed besides well displayed advertisements of “Horsey Keep Your Tail Up," that such songs as; “When Tt's Night Time Tu Ttaly ft's Wednesday Over Here,” “Does The Spearmint Lose It’s Flavour on The Bed Post Over-Night.” “Shall 1 Have Tt Bobb’d Or Shingl’d And “I’m Going To Bring A Water Melon To My Girl To-night' were continually being- kept undt-v the notice of the public. Undoubtedly. we will fall in line with the rest of the world, and take to the just mentioned songs as soon as tliev are put on the market out here, continuing- to sing them and similar ditties that appeal most to the childish side of our nature and thus will be in the attitude to apply our faculties to the more serious questions of every-day life.