Crossword-Solution: SWANEE 6 letters, 67 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 9

Niggers, having bored us with tiresome songs about coons and honeys and Swanee Rivers, would, as a last resource, strike up "God save the Queen" on the banjo.

Nearly all the successful popular songs frankly owned themes that were favorites of other days--some were favorites long "before the war." Berlin's use of "Way down upon the Swanee River"--"played in ragtime"--for a musical punch in "Alexander's Ragtime Band," was not the first free use of a theme of an old favorite for a punch, but it was one of the first honestly frank uses.

But he could not disguise the truth forever, and that very night, while the family was at prayers, Henry all at once began to hiccup, and the musicbox started off without warning, with "way down on the Swanee River," with variations.

The director, perceiving the doleful effect I had produced, suggested, "Perhaps something in a lighter vein." I tried to think of "something in a lighter vein," and inquired, "How would 'Swanee River' be?" "First-rate," said the kind director; "just the thing--_good_" emphasizing the word _good_ by slapping his hands together.

Then silence fell, and softly and sweetly over that silence, floated the tender, pathetic words of "Way down upon the Swanee River." You might have heard a pin drop.