BUNNY!

Being caught between Valentine's Day and Easter and in the middle of the seemingly endless gray skies that are common to my part of the Midwest during this season, I found an appropriate piece of sheet music.

I can't help thinking that the Bunny Hug must have been a dance - especially with it being "The Craze of the Day". Personally, I can't help thinking it sounds like a euphemism for sex, "They went down to Lover's Lane and he gave her the old bunny hug..." Afterward there would be tittering and murmured innuendos. Google turned up a Wikipedia article but the abundance of 'citation needed' statements (along with the fact it's Wikipedia) drum up suspicion about all the claims contained there – though it is notable that much of the same information is contained on StreetSwing.com. The StreetSwing article contains a quote from a 1938 issue of Stage Magazine that I like (because it shows the sentiment of the times).

"We hear the Two-step and an outrageously indecent display called the Bunny Hug are gaining favor with the younger element. Let them watch their steps, these young sensationalists. The time will come when they will tire of this eternal jogging and jerking, and find more surcease in the grace and restful beauty of the Valse".

The "valse", by the way, is a mid-nineteenth century term for the waltz. That might say a lot about the people who shared the opinion that the Bunny Hop and its anthropomorphic brethren were a sure sign of Satan's cloven hoof stepping onto the dance floor. The thing that springs to mind for me is – jeesh, it was 1938 and people were trying to use the language of 1838 to describe moral imperatives? To have actually danced the 'valse' when it was called the 'valse' and have had any reasonable understanding of the dance beyond it being 'what mommy and daddy do on Saturday night', the guy who wrote that criticisim would have been about 120 years old! Talk about not letting it go! Imagine the state of the world if we ran around applying the morals of 1910 to all our dealings. All I can say is get the stick out of your butt, it's obviously causing some irritation!

The cover's simple enough – Mr. And Mrs. Bunny dancing away in front of the mindless bunny legions. I believe they're dancing somewhere in limbo or a fog bank because they seem to be surrounded by limitless, gray nothingness. The lines are nice and clean and the image is generally pleasing if a little uninspired. It fit the season so I had to cart it out!