Since Christopher Tobias’ last access to popular music before Unexpected Danger was 1913, I thought I’d look into the sort of thing he might have heard. These are what I came up with. The Peelenium links are original recordings from the time period chosen to represent their time-periods in a millenium celebration (1999).

http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/Peelenium_1912

http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/Peelenium_1913

Here’s the Peele entry for 1928.

http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/Peelenium_1928

I’m finally finding sources of the music itself, which is helpful.

Audio track for “I Hear a Thrush at Eve” (1913)

https://archive.org/details/78_i-hear-a-thrush-at-eve_john-mccormack-eberhart-cadman_gbia0034887acadman_gbia0034887a

Found at Audio Archive (https://archive.org/details/audio), which sorts recordings by date.

https://archive.org/details/audio?sort=&and[]=languageSorter%3A%22English%22&and[]=subject%3A%22Popular+Music%22&and[]=year%3A%221928%22&and[]=year%3A%221927%22&and[]=year%3A%221913%22&and[]=year%3A%221912%22

Given how long that last link is, I hope it works!

If only I had this when I was writing Unexpected Danger!