Chong

Album: not on an album (1919)
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Songfacts®:

  • In the second of a two-part documentary broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in 2011, presenter Terence Blacker said of "Chong" when it was written in the 1920s, "it was an innocent, comic song about the mysterious Orient, and in the circles in which it was played, it was neither unusual nor contentious."

    In fact, this song written by Harold Weeks was published by Leo Feist of New York in 1919. Also known as "Chong - He Come From Hong Kong" and "Chong (He Come From Hong Kong)," it's actually quite a passable number regardless of its apparent caricature of a certain type of ethnic Chinese, and certainly no more offensive than the later "The Scotsman Song." It was recorded by Irving Kaufman on both Columbia and Okeh, and twice by Billy Murray, and also, in 1919, by the vaudeville vocalist/violinist Odette Myrtil. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England

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