{"id":5786,"date":"2025-06-21T08:42:34","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T12:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=5786"},"modified":"2025-06-21T08:42:32","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T12:42:32","slug":"someday-sweetheart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/someday-sweetheart\/","title":{"rendered":"Someday Sweetheart (Morton and Spikes)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Someday Sweetheart\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Qqizw6gdbj0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is another I&#8217;ve known for ages, but only started doing regularly when Sandrine joined me on clarinet. It was published in 1919 by the brothers John and Ben &#8220;Reb&#8221; Spikes, but Jelly Roll Morton claimed they got it from him and he got the basic melody from another piano player, Kid North &#8212; who was a &#8220;player&#8221; in all sorts of ways and will be a character in my next book project, about a group of hustlers who moved between New Orleans, San Diego, and other points in the early twentieth century.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5067\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Jellycover-e1710359243890.jpg?resize=200%2C302&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"302\" \/>I got interested in North while writing <em>Jelly Roll<\/em> <em>Blues<\/em>, where I mentioned Morton&#8217;s recollection that this song was based on his version of a classic streetwalker&#8217;s lament:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cSomeday Sweetheart\u201d was a tune that a old racetrack man, friend of<\/em><br \/>\n<em>mine \u2014 Kid North \u2014 he only could play one tune. And he told me that I could have the tune since <\/em><em>he found that I was a writer of music..<\/em><em>. The title of the tune that he wanted to give to me, which a part of it <\/em><em>was taken for \u201cSomeday Sweetheart,\u201d the title was named \u201cTricks Ain\u2019t Walkin\u2019 No More&#8230;.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>[The Spikes brothers] wrote up the tune together and called it\u00a0 &#8220;Someday Sweetheart&#8230;&#8221; At the time Reb and I was working for the mayor\u2019s son in Oakland, in a cabaret there on the main street&#8230;. So the tune came out and was quite famous. In fact, I helped to make the tune famous myself.\u00a0 Of course, my name doesn\u2019t appear on the tune, and I\u2019m not jealous about it. I hope the boys would write ten million other ones like that.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Morton had a long relationship with the Spikes brothers; Reb recalled that they met in 1911, when the brothers were running the Pastime Theatre, an outdoor venue in Muskogee, Oklahoma: &#8220;Jelly Roll Morton drifted into town&#8230; [he] did a comedy act in black face . . . he didn\u2019t hire on as a musician . . . the show\u2019s band had a pianist. Before long, Jelly displayed his ability . . . soon took over the piano stool in that band.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-5789 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/someday-sweetheart-e1748802361743.jpg?resize=237%2C316&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"237\" height=\"316\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/someday-sweetheart-e1748802361743.jpg?w=1083&amp;ssl=1 1083w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/someday-sweetheart-e1748802361743.jpg?resize=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/someday-sweetheart-e1748802361743.jpg?resize=769%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 769w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/someday-sweetheart-e1748802361743.jpg?resize=768%2C1023&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/someday-sweetheart-e1748802361743.jpg?w=948&amp;ssl=1 948w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 237px) 100vw, 237px\" \/>The Spikes are credited with writing lyrics to one of Morton&#8217;s most popular tunes, &#8220;Wolverine Blues,&#8221; and I see no reason to doubt Morton&#8217;s claim that he was involved in this one as well. He recorded it a couple of times, though just as an instrumental; the first vocal recording &#8212; actually, the first recording of any kind &#8212; was by Alberta Hunter in 1922, with somewhat different words.<\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s the historical background &#8212; and for myself, I have no idea where I first heard it or when I learned it. I&#8217;m guessing I played it when I was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/some-of-these-days\/\">working the Antwerp restaurants with Nick Boons<\/a>, but that&#8217;s just a guess. I clearly had a taste for &#8220;someday you&#8217;ll be sorry&#8221; songs, since my relatively limited repertoire of standards from this period also includes the similarly themed &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/after-youve-gone\/\">After You&#8217;ve Gone<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/some-of-these-days\/\">Some of These Days<\/a>.&#8221; I wasn&#8217;t the only one: Sophie Tucker did this as a follow-up to &#8220;Some of These Days&#8221; &#8212; and it&#8217;s probably not a coincidence that all three of those songs were by Black songwriters; there were lots of good white tunesmiths on that scene, but I find that the songs that have stuck with me were disproportionately by Black writers who were also performers on the Black vaudeville and nightclub circuits. I don&#8217;t know what it was that made their songs sound or feel different &#8212; maybe it wasn&#8217;t the songs themselves; maybe I tended to listen to Black musicians and they favored the Black composers. In any case, I recently noticed this and it seemed worth noting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is another I&#8217;ve known for ages, but only started doing regularly when Sandrine joined me on clarinet. It was published in 1919 by the brothers John and Ben &#8220;Reb&#8221; Spikes, but Jelly Roll Morton claimed they got it from him and he got the basic melody from another piano player, Kid North &#8212; who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/someday-sweetheart\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Someday Sweetheart (Morton and Spikes)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Someday Sweetheart (Morton and Spikes) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An early jazz song credited to John and Reb Spikes, but credibly claimed by Jelly Roll Morton, who credited it to a gambler named 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piece, and am posting it now because I used it as the theme of chapter one of my new book, Jelly Roll Blues, an exploration of Jelly Roll Morton's Library of Congress recordings, the world that nurtured\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Blind-Boones-Southern-Rag-Medley-No-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1527,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/","url_meta":{"origin":5786,"position":1},"title":"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A wry, pretty ballad from Jelly Roll Morton, basically arranged by Dave Van Ronk, with the story of my last official lesson with Dave and Billy Taylor's story of Morton's final days.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar 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I hitched down from Southport via Myrtle Beach and don't\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Michael-Tyzack.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1331,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/buddy-boldens-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":5786,"position":3},"title":"Buddy Bolden&#8217;s Blues (Jelly Roll Morton)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dave Van Ronk had numerous musical heroes,\u00a0 but Jelly Roll Morton was number one. Over the years, I got used to the idea that if I stayed late enough at his place we would likely end up listening to Morton records (often back to back with Phillipe Koutev's Bulgarian ensemble),\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/jelly-roll-morton-commodore-300x295.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2083,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/michigan-water\/","url_meta":{"origin":5786,"position":4},"title":"Michigan Water (ironies of the Great Migration)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This year's award for the most glaring irony in American folklore goes to the title line of this song: \"Michigan water tastes like sherry wine.\" Jelly Roll Morton's lyric metaphorically summed up the central dream of the \"great migration\" -- that black Americans could escape bad times down south for\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"jelly roll morton commodore","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/jelly-roll-morton-commodore-300x295.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1387,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/mamies-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":5786,"position":5},"title":"Mamie&#8217;s Blues (219 Blues)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In his notes to this song, Dave Van Ronk wrote, \"Jelly Roll Morton, certainly the greatest jazz composer before Ellington and a singer of incredible subtlety claimed to have invented jazz in 1902. There is little point in argument.\" This was one of Morton's most subtle efforts, and one of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/BasinSt.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5786"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5820,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5786\/revisions\/5820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}