It's not often that one finds an obscure Billy Murray record, as they all sold pretty well, but this one issued by Zonophone in March of 1908 is fairly scarce. There were no songwriter credits on the label - Zonophone was notorious for
that - but Rocky informs me that it was written in 1907 by Wallace Irwin (a very prolific writer and satirist - see this entry in Wikipedia) and Alfred G. Robyn
(an active composer for Broadway musicals from 1904 to 1914 - see this list at IBDB.com). It is a cynically amusing song about a farmboy trying his hand at higher
education. The parent's admonition in the first chorous becomes almost a taunt when repeated by the college friends in the second chorous. Billy Murray was in top form in 1908 and, in this recording, handles the song like the pro he always
was. The surface of this disc was rough in spots, due to being played quite a lot and also sitting in a dusty attic for eighty years, but some appropriate noise reduction brought the music out from behind the noise.
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