Composer: Charles Leslie Johnson

Publisher: Jerome H. Remick

Copyright: 1911

Cover: William or Frederick Starmer

Collectible Value: $25.00

Category: Piano Rag

Pattern: Intro A A B B A Trio Trio B¹ B¹ Intro A

Difficulty (1 to 5): * *

Currently available from:
Indiana Harmony Collection

Pictured is a toy from the first decade of the 20th Century called the Cum-Bac. That very name, misspelled to either be clever or kid-friendly, was the entire purpose of the toy - to come back. The cover of Johnson's Cum-Bac Rag was designed in a complimentary fashion to the toy's logo. Essentially a dumbbell-shaped can with the edges only slight larger than the body, it had weights either suspended or free-floating within that were supposed to guide the toy in a sort of semi-circle when it was rolled away, with mixed results on the actual return. Perhaps some level of skill was required to make the can come back succesfully. Kids must have been so easily entertained back then, in part because the rolling popcorn popper had not yet been invented, the intermediary step to WII or XBox.

The A section of Cum-Bac Rag tries with some success to capture that rolling motion as it moves up the scale, resolving with the capture of toy each time. The cover art also, to some degree, captures the essence of the logo on the toy.