ABSTRACT
In James Cruz's 1923 silent western The Covered Wagon, a young boy strums a banjo as the lyrics of the Stephen Foster tune "Oh! Susanna" appear in the intertitles. The diegetic representation of song is not unique to The Covered Wagon, nor is the films use of period music. In fact, the use of period music, both diegetic and nondiegetic, has provided something of a touchstone for the genre of the western. The prototypical dime novel Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road, for instance, includes a scene in which a miner picks up a banjo and sings "Gwine to Get a Home, Bymeby." Owen Wister's tonier opus The Virginian has the eponymous cowboy protagonist singing "Jim Crow." 1 It is this tradition that The Covered Wagon extended into film when it used "Oh! Susanna," paving the way for sound westerns to exploit music in the same way. To cite but a few examples: "Kingdom Comin"' (aka "Year of the Jubilo" or "Jubilo") in The Telegraph Trail (1933) and Virginia City (1940); "Dixie's Land" (aka "Dixie") in Royal Rodeo (1939); "Camptown Races" and "Ring, Ring de Banjo" in Virginia City, and "Oh! Susanna" in Virginia City, The Telegraph Trail, Royal Rodeo, Gunsmoke Ranch (1937), and Oh, Susanna, starring Gene Autry (1936). What all these examples (and more) have in common is the use of a specific kind of period song to signal authenticity to their audiences.
