[Alternately: “Stop That Knocking,” “Stop Dat Knocking At My Door”]

Originally composed by Winnemore for his Boston Minstrels, the song is a parody of Italian opera conventions and functioned as the source material for E.P. Christy’s (1815-1862) “Who’s Dat Knocking at the Door” (Mahar 22). According to Renee Lapp Norris, Winnemore’s text borrows heavily from Thomas Dartmouth Rice’s (1808-1860) play Oh! Hush! Or, The Virginny Cupids! which itself belonged to the British ballad opera tradition (358-60). The basic action of the play – two suitors fighting over a the same woman – is consistent throughout the various published versions of the songs, but the outcome of the dispute appears to vary, as well as the degree to which both suitors are actually represented as interlocutors.

The song appears to have been fairly popular on both sides of the Atlantic during the period in question, more so than its adaptation “Who’s Dat Knocking at the Door,” if the frequency of its appearance in playbills can be taken as evidence. However, the popularity of the song did not seem to endure into the twentieth century. Certainly, like its adaptation, “Who’s Dat Knocking at the Door,” the song assisted in establishing “knocking at my door” as a trope in popular song, but there is little evidence to indicate this song was consistently performed in any canon outside of the period. Robert Winans’ version is the only known widely-released recording of the song.

Select Recording History:

Winans, Robert, music director and program consultant. The Early Minstrel Show. New World Records, 1998.

Works Cited:

Lapp Norris, Renee. “Opera and the Mainstreaming of Blackface Minstrelsy.” Journal of the Society for American Music 1.3 (2007): 341–365.

Mahar, William J. Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. Chicago: Illinois UP, 1999.

Mark Turner