MINSTREL TYPES
“Git out yo’ trombone, Rufus; we’re goin’ to raise a rukus tonight.”
THE BALLAD OF DAVY CROCKETT*
Now, don’t you want to know something concernin’
Where it was I come from and where I got my learnin’?
Oh, the world is made of mud out o’ the Mississippi River!
The sun’s a ball of foxfire, as well you may disciver.
Take the ladies out at night. They shine so bright,
They make the world light when the moon is out of sight.
And so one day as I was goin’ a-spoonin’
I met Colonel Davy, and he was goin’ a-coonin’.
Says I, “Where’s your gun?” “I ain’ got none.”
“How you goin’ kill a coon when you haven’t got a gun?”
Says he, “Pompcalf, just follow after Davy,
And he’ll soon show you how to grin a coon crazy.”
I followed on a piece and thar sot a squirrel,
A-settin’ on a log and a-eatin’ sheep sorrel.
When Davy did that see, he looked around at me,
Saying, “All I want now is a brace agin your knee.”
And thar I braced a great big sinner.
He grinned six times hard enough to git his dinner!
The critter on the log didn’t seem to mind him—
Jest kep’ a-settin’ thar and wouldn’t look behind him.
Then it was he said: “The critter must be dead.
See the bark a-flyin’ all around the critter’s head?”
I walked right up the truth to disciver.
Drot! It was a pine knot so hard it made me shiver.
Says he, “Pompcalf, don’t you begin to laugh—
I’ll pin back your ears and bite you half in half!”
I flung down my gun and all my ammunition,
Says I, “Davy Crockett, I can cool your ambition!”
He throwed back his head and he blowed like a steamer.
Says he, “Pompcalf, I’m a Tennessee screamer!”
Then we locked horns and we wallered in the thorns.
I never had such a fight since the hour I was born.
We fought a day and a night and then agreed to drop it.
I was purty badly whipped—and so was Davy Crockett.
I looked all around and found my head a-missin’—
He’d bit off my head and I had swallered hisn!
Then we did agree to let each other be;
I was too much for him, and he was too much for me.
RAISE A RUKUS TONIGHT
This song, probably of a minstrel origin, is one of the best known of all tunes among Negroes of the South. The verses are legion. The three verses quoted here were sung to us by a Negro boy, named Butterball, on the Smithers plantation near Huntsville, Texas. He was a runt, what the cowboys call, among cattle, “a dogie.” And he sang for us, with scarcely a hesitation, some twenty stanzas of “Raise a Rukus,” each an epigram that dealt with something good to eat, the whole a saga of the belly.
Come along, chillun, come along,
While the moon’s shinin’ bright,
Git on board, down de river float,
We gonna raise a rukus tonight.
All dem taters in dat oven,
Raise a rukus tonight,
How I wish I had some ob ’em!
Raise a rukus tonight.
All dem peas in dat pot,
Raise a rukus tonight,
Look how many we have got,
Raise a rukus tonight.
All dem biscuits in dat pan,
Raise a rukus tonight,
Ef I don’ git ’em, gonna raise some san’,
Raise a rukus tonight.
WHEN DE GOOD LORD SETS YOU FREE*
A spiritual taken over by the “worl’ly.” The changing and fluid chorus comes in at irregular intervals.
Big black nigger lying on the log,
Finger on trigger, eye on the hog.
Gun says bum! hog says bip!
Nigger jumped on him with all his grip.
Chorus:
Got my pork chops,
Good chitlins, big kidneys;
Got the liver, too. You shall be free,
When the good Lord sets you free.
Way down yonder ’bout Cedar Creek,
Niggers don’t grow but ’leven feet;
They lay in the bed till it ain’t no use,
Feet stick out like a chicken roost.
Chorus:
Shout study, you shall be free,
When the good Lord sets you free.
If you want to get to heben, I’ll tell you how to do it:
Slick your feet in muttin suet,
When the devil gets at you with a red-hot hand,
Slip way over in the promised land!
Talk about it, you shall be free,
When the good Lord sets you free.
Went to the river to be baptize’,
Stepped on a root and got capsize’,
Water was deep, preacher was weak,
Nigger went to heben from the bottom of the creek!
If you want to see a preacher laugh,
Change a dollar and give him half;
Big black nigger, blacker ’n blackin’ tar,
Tryin’ to get to heben on a ’lectric car.
If you want t’ see a rooster crow,
Th’ow some corn pone befo’ yo do’,
Take a stick in yo’ right hand,
Knock him over in the promised land.
Nigger and rooster had a fight,
Rooster knocked the nigger clean out of sight.
Nigger said, “Mr. Rooster, that will be all right,
I’ll meet you at the chicken roost tomorrow night,
With my cracker sack tomorrow night.”
Kneelin’ in de chicken house on my knees,
Thought I heard a chicken sneeze,
Sneeze so hard wid de whoopin’ cough,
Sneezed his head and tail right off.
Chorus:
Oh, mourner, you will be free,
Yes, mourner, you will be free,
When de good Lord sets you free.
Ain’t no use for me workin’ hard,
I got a gal in the white folk’s yard,
Sift the flour and reach at the lard,
Wasn’t for the bulldog I’d be in the yard.
Chorus:
He might bite me, bad bulldog,
In the morning when the good Lord sets me free.
Ol’ Marse Jack come ridin’ by.
“Say, Marse Jack, dat mule’s gwine to die.”
“Ef he die, I’ll tan his skin,
An’ if he don’t, I’ll ride him ag’in.”
Peter Jackson, tall and black,
Hit Billy Chavers the finishing crack,
Jumped on de train and yanked de cord,
Now he’s presented to an English Lord!
Chorus:
Fightin’ nigger! Den-a you shall be free,
When de good Lord sets you free.
Nigger be a nigger whatever he do:
Tie red ribbon round the toe of his shoe,
Jerk his vest on over his coat,
Snatch his britches up round his throat.
Chorus:
Singing high-stepper, you shall be free,
When the good Lord sets you free.
I went down to hog-eye town,
Dey sot me down to table,
I eat so much of dat hog-eye grease,
Till de grease ran out my nable.
Run long home, Miss Hog-eye,
Singin’ high-stepper, Lord, you shall be free.
God made bees, bees made honey;
God made man, man made money.
God made a nigger, made him in the night,
Made him in a hurry and forgot to paint him white.
Chorus:
Po’ mo’nahs! You shall be free,
When the good Lord sets you free.
OLD DAN TUCKER
Martha McCulloch-Williams writes to the editor of the New York Sun:
“Here is a true and proper, if fragmentary, version of the ballad as chanted from my earliest youth, and derived, as is most immortal poesy, from North Carolina. Thence too comes the spurious initial stanza of the folk lore people:
“Ole Aunt Dinah she got drunk,
Felled in de fire and kicked up a chunk.
Red hot coal popped in her shoe—
Lordy a-mighty! How de water flew?
“Ole Dan Tucker was adjustable—you began singing it where you chose and could play both ends against the middle, or sing it backward, or forward, or improvise topical stanzas according to your mind and skill. It was a fine dancing tune, and the black fiddlers often sang it as they fiddled, the prompter meanwhile racking his wits to find new figures yet keep the proper rhythms.
“Let me say further the singing was commonly in negro dialect, but not invariably so. That rested with the singers, who, singing for their own joy, neither knew nor cared if they sang in key, especially if they were roystering young blades riding home from a long dance around five o’clock in the morning. There were, as of most other dance songs, lawless and high colored versions for such tunes, versions which could not be given unexpurgated before ladies. But the sedatest could take no offence at the authorized ballad, which indeed was often used as a lullaby:
“Ole Dan’l Tucker clomb a tree,
His Lord and Marster for to see.
De limb hit broke and Dan got a fall—
Nuver got to see his Lord at all!
“Git out o’ the way, Ole Dan Tucker!
Git out o’ the way, Ole Dan Tucker!
Git out o’ the way, Ole Dan Tucker!
You’re too late to git your supper.
“Miss Tucker she went out one day,
To ride with Dan in a one horse sleigh.
De sleigh was broke, and de horse was blind—
Miss Tucker she got left behind.
Git out o’ the way, etc.
“As I come down de new cut road,
I spied de peckerwood and de toad,
And every time de toad would jump
De peckerwood hopped upon de stump.
Git out o’ the way, etc.
“And next upon de gravel road,
I met Br’er Tarypin and Br’er Toad.
And every time Br’er Toad would sing
Br’er Tarrypin cut de pigeon wing.
Git out o’ the way, etc.
“Ole Dan and me we did fall out,
And what d’ye reckon it was about?
He trod on my corn and I kicked him on the shins;
That’s jest the way this row begins.
Git out o’ the way, etc.
“If Ole Dan he had corn to buy,
He’d mo’n and wipe his weepin’ eye;
But when Ole Dan had corn to sell,
He was as sassy as all hell.
Git out o’ the way, etc.”
But the North Carolina lady is wrong. The original six-stanza “Old Dan Tucker” was written by Dan Emmett, who was also the author of “Dixie” and many other popular songs. Not one of his stanzas is quoted by the writer. There are hundreds of spurious stanzas that yet survive.
I came to town de udder night,
I hear de noise, an’ I saw de fight.
De watchman wuz a-runnin’ roun’
Cryin’ “Old Dan Tucker’s come to town.”
Chorus:
So, git outa de way for old Dan Tucker,
He’s come too late to git his supper.
Supper’s over and breakfast cookin’,
Old Dan Tucker standin’ lookin’.
Old Dan Tucker he went to de mill,
To git some meal to put in de swill;
The miller swo’ by de point of his knife
He nebber had seed such a man in his life.
Dan Tucker and I we did fall out,
And what do you think it was about?
He tread upon corn; I kicked him on de chin,
An’ dat’s de way dis row begin.
Old Dan began in early life,
To play de banjo an’ de fife;
He play de niggers all to sleep,
An’ den into his bunk he creep.
Old Daniel Tucker wuz a mighty man,
He washed his face in a fryin’ pan;
Combed his head wid a wagon wheel
And died wid de toofache in his heel.
And now Old Dan is a gone sucker,
And never can go home to supper.
Old Dan has had his las’ ride,
An’ de banjo’s buried by his side.
COTTON-EYED JOE*
A Square Dance Song or Breakdown
If it had not ’a’ been for Cotton-Eyed Joe,
I’d ’a’ been married forty years ago.
Cornstalk fiddle and cornstalk bow
Gwine to beat hell out-a Cotton-Eyed Joe.
Gwine to go shootin’ my forty-fo’,
Won’t be a nigger in a mile or mo’.
Hain’t seen ol’ Joe since way last fall,
Say he’s been sold down to Guines Hall.
Great long line and little short pole,
I’m on my way to the crawfish hole.
Oh, it makes dem ladies love me so
W’en I come round a-pickin’ Cotton-Eyed Joe.
Hol’ my fiddle an’ hol’ my bow,
Whilst I knock ol’ Cotton-Eyed Joe.
Oh, law, ladies, pity my case,
For Ise got a jawbone in my face.
O Lawd, O Lawd, come pity my case,
For I’m gettin’ old an’ wrinkled in de face.
* From an article of Julia Beazley in Volume VI of the Publications of the Texas Folk-Lore Society.
* From different sources, principally students of Prairie View Normal (for Negroes), Texas.
* In jigs of this type the fiddler sings a couplet and then plays indeterminately, with variations of the tune. Meanwhile the dance goes on.