Jenny Lind Polka

A 2/4 polka in G major, long current in American Old Time tradition and named for the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, whose 1850–52 American tour under P.T. Barnum set off a craze of tunes and goods bearing her name. The melody travelled unusually far: it became a fixture of Québécois fiddling, where Joseph Allard recorded it twice in the 1930s under French titles and Louis Blanchette and Isidore Soucy cut their own versions, and it also turns up in Ozark and southern U.S. repertoires, including an early 78 by Henry Whitter’s Breakdowners of southwestern Virginia. In the Ozarks it sometimes carried the floating title “Dance All Night with a Gal with a Hole in Her Stocking”.