Jimmy Crack Corn

Also known as 'Blue Tail Fly,' this is an American minstrel song that gained popularity during the rise of blackface minstrelsy in the 1840s. First documented in print in 1846 when F.D. Benteen published "Jim Crack Corn, or the Blue Tail Fly" and Oliver Ditson & Co. published "De Blue Tail Fly: A Negro Song," the song was popularized through performances by the Virginia Minstrels. The lyrics are narrated from the viewpoint of an enslaved person lamenting, or subtly celebrating, the death of their master, who dies after his horse is startled by a blue-tail fly, with some interpreting this as having an abolitionist undertone. It was notably a favorite of Abraham Lincoln, who reportedly referred to it as "that buzzing song" and may have played it on his harmonica.