Intermission Number One

The first of three “intermissions,” this chapter examines a number of songs, poems, and publications that may have influenced the formation of the earliest “Liza Jane” tunes. It leads off with the Scottish poet Robert Burns, who enjoyed widespread popularity throughout the antebellum South. If half the title of “Goodbye Liza Jane” may have derived from a Burns poem, “Farewell to Eliza,” then the other half may have emerged from the 1850s minstrelsy piece “Susan Jane.” Other minstrelsy titles and lyrics, as well as poems printed in a variety of newspapers, contribute to a sense of “historical sludge” surrounding the “Liza Jane” family—namely, that many tantalizing texts and popular songs may have contributed to the formation of the “Liza Jane” folk songs first recited by enslaved African Americans.