Louis Armstrong with friend and New Orleans Jazz historian Don Marquis (1951)
Glad He Is Dead.
Sunday afternoon last Judge Knapp passed in his checks after an illness of only two weeks. His wife had supported him by laundry work for the last two years, and although the widow has donned the weeds and is figuring on a tombstone with a lamb on top of it, we’ve got a dollar which says she’s glad the old loafer has gone to a better [hotter?] country. If she isn’t, we are, for he made our office his loafing place, and the tobacco stains he left after him will keep his memory green for a year to come. [Arizona Kicker]
Galveston Daily News, May 19, 1888
Perhaps songwriter Sam Theard was around early enough to have known the story of the little beloved or mourned Judge Knapp who so spitefully finds his memorial in this 1888 story of his passing as it appeared in the Arizona Kicker and then found its way into the May 19, 1888 edition of the Galveston Daily News. Of course, lazy old cusses who leave all the work to their soldiering, beloved, and angry wives and office secretaries have never been hard to find so the greater probability remains that the apparent relatedness of the old judge to the later song are simply the result of a hard-to-miss coincidence. Thanks again to researcher-friend Darrell Pittman for forwarding an old news clipping that juiced the notion for this column subject.
Here are the lyrics to the song that spiked our associative memories file:
I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You
Words and Music By Sam Theard (1931)
Now I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you, uh-huh
I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you, oh yeah
Well I let into my home, you gonna leave my woman alone
I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you
Now I’ll be glad when you die, you rascal you, uh-huh
I’ll be glad, oh I’ll be tickled to death when you leave this earth it’s true, oh yeah
When you’re lyin’ down six feet deep, no more fried chicken will you eat
I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you, oh yeah
Ah, you just ain’t no good! oh, you dog
Now listen here, I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you, uh-huh
I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you, oh yeah
I’ll be standin’ on the corner high, when they drag your body by
I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you know I’m gonna be so happy when you’re gone you dog
I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you
And if you care to hear old “Louie” sing it, here’s the link for listening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgiJ0OS9LwU
Bill MsCurdy with Don Marquis
During a New Orleans visit
(2005)
Tags: Dead Rascals Adieu
The Pecan Park Eagle 
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