Juice of the Forbidden Fruit, The

DESCRIPTION: A story of all the people who drank: "And ever since then all manner of men... Will drink the juice of the forbidden fruit." Henry Ward Beecher is among those accused of tippling, and the drinking habits of many notorious figures are outlined
AUTHOR: see NOTES
EARLIEST DATE: 1883 (Murphy and Mack's Jolly Sailors Songster)
KEYWORDS: drink political
FOUND IN: US(Ap,So)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety, p. 441, "The Juice of the Forbidden Fruit" (1 text)
Randolph 403, "The Juice of the Forbidden Fruit" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Randolph/Cohen-OzarkFolksongs-Abridged, pp. 340-342, "The Juice of the Forbidden Fruit" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 403B)
Roberts/Agey-InThePine #142, "Juice of the Forbidden Fruit" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: (no author listed), _Murphy and Mack's Jolly Sailors Songster_, (Pittsburg:) The American Publishing Company, 1883 (available in the Robert Winslow Gordon Songster Collection at the Library of Congress web site), p. 43, "Forbidden Fruit" (1 text)
Roud #3533
RECORDINGS:
Neil Morris, "The Juice of the Forbidden Fruit" (on LomaxCD1706)
NOTES [295 words]: Among the various figures accused in this song of drinking are:
* Henry Ward Beecher - Congregational minister who campaigned against slavery
* Cleveland and Blaine - The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates of 1884. It was not an attractive campaign; Blaine was (regarded as) corrupt and Cleveland had an illegitimate child
* Ben Butler - Politician turned Civil War general turned politician again. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives for most of the period 1866-1879, and became Governor of Massachusetts in 1883. In 1884 he ran, unsuccessfully, for a presidential nomination
* Frank James - The brother of Jesse
* Charles and Bob Ford - Friends, relatives, and betrayers of Jesse James
* Oscar Wilde - the author/playwright
* Grant - Ulysses S. Grant, widely accused of being a drunkard although he apparently did not drink during the Civil War itself or during his presidency. He had, however, drunk enough before the war that he was pushed out of the army
On the evidence, it would appear that Randolph's "B" version, at least, was crafted during the 1884 Presidential election.
The version of this in Murphy and Mack's Jolly Sailors Songster says it was "Written and sung by Manchester and Jennings" This version is very generic, however; it names Adam and Eve among the tiplers, but doesn't mention anyone modern. There must surely have been a rewrite, either to produce the versions with modern names or to eliminate them. I don't know which it is, but the fact that the Murphy and Mack's Jolly Sailors Songster version is from 1883, and is generic, while the one with all the names clearly is from 1884, I think the balance of evidence is that the generic version is the original, and it was sharpened up for campaign purposes. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: R403

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