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Go tell Aunt Dinah/ Aunt Rhody
Traditional song and breakdown, from old France.
ARTIST: From Lomax by Mary McDonald (Negro) near Livingston Ala. May 27, 1939
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes. DATE: Recorded in US in 1925.
RECORDING INFO: American Ballads and Folk Songs, MacMillan, Bk (1934), p.305 (Old Grey Goose); Carolina Tar Heels. Folk Music in America, Vol.13, Songs of Childhood, Library of Congress LBC-13, LP (1978), cut#A.04 (Old Grey Goose); Carolina Tar Heels. Carolina Tar Heels, Old Homestead OHCS 113, LP (1978), cut# 6 (Old Grey Goose); Highwaymen. Homecoming, United Artists UAL 3348, LP (196?), cut#A.05; Ives, Burl. Burl Ives Sings for Fun, Decca DL 8248, LP (195?), cut#B.04 (Aunt Rhody/ie); MacArthur, Margaret. How to Play the MacArthur Harp, Front Hall FHRBP 1005, Cas (1986), cut#p.13; Marais and Miranda. Songs of Many Lands, Decca DL 5106, LP (195?), cut#B.03; Reagon, Bernice (Johnson). Folk Songs: the South, Folkways FA 2457, LP, cut#A.03 (Aunt Rhody/ie); Riddle, Almeda. Sounds of the South, Atlantic 7-82496-2, CD( (1993), cut#4.08 (Go Tell Aunt Nancy); Riddle, Almeda. Singer and Her Songs. Almeda Riddle's Book of Songs, Louisiana State, Bk (1970), p118 (Go Tell Aunt Nancy); Ritchie, Jean and Edna. Ritchie Family of Kentucky, Folkways FA 2316, LP (1959), cut#B.03c; Ritchie, Jean. Best of Jean Ritchie, Prestige International 13003, LP (196?), cut# 20; Ritchie, Jean. Folk Go-Go, Verve/Folkways FV 9011, LP (197?), cut# 11; Ritchie, Jean. Most Dulcimer, Greenhays GR 714, LP (1984), cut# 13 (Aunt Rhody/ie); Ritchie, Jean. Saturday Night and Sunday Too, Riverside RLP 12-620, LP (1956), cut#B.10a; Sansone, Maggie. Dulcimer Player News, Dulcimer Player News DPN, Ser (1973-), 8/2, p3; Stracke, Win. Folk Songs for the Young, Golden Records, LP (1962), cut#B.02 (Aunt Rhody/ie); Weavers. Weavers' Song Book, Harper & Row, Sof (1960), p 99 (Aunt Rhody/ie) ; Weavers. The Weavers at Home, Vanguard VRS 9024, LP (195?), cut#A.05 (Aunt Rhody/ie); Pickard Family, "The Old Gray Goose is Dead". Pete Seeger, "Go Tell Aunt Rhody"
OTHER NAMES: The Old Gray Goose is Dead; Gray Goose(Not to be confused with the minstrel song- "Gray Goose" which is part of the "My Wife Died on A Saturday Night" family of songs); Go Tell Aunt Rhody/Rhodie; Go Tell Aunt Nancy; Related to: Chiny/Chiney/China Doll; Down Came an Angel;
SOURCES: Herren, Ruth Burton. Sweet Bunch of Daisies, Colonial Press, Bk (1991), p115 (Old Grey Goose); Randolph 270, "Go Tell Aunt Rhody"; Lomax-FSUSA 3, "Go Tell Aunt Nancy" Lomax-ABFS, pp. 305-306, "The Old Gray Goose"; Arnett, p. 39, "Go Tell Aunt Rhody"; Chase, pp. 176-177, "The Old Gray Goose is Dead" PSeeger-AFB, p. 45, "Go Tell Aunt Rhody"; Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 275, "Go Tell Aunt Rhody"; Silber-FSWB, p. 404, "Aunt Rhody". Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc.
NOTES: "Randolph quotes Chase to the effect that this tune was used in an opera by Jean Jacques Rousseau in 1750. The situation is rather more complex than this would imply. The most recent, and most significant, work on this subject is Murl Sickbert, Jr.'s "Go Tell Aunt Rhody She's Rousseau's Dream" (published 2000). Norm Cohen reports the following: "In 1752, Rousseau composed 'Le Devin du village,' a pastoral opera bouffe.... [The Aunt Rhody tune appears] as a gavotte in the pantomime no. 8 (divertissement or ballet). It is danced by 'la villageoise,' a shepherdess or country girl, to music without words." Sickbert observes that the Rousseau composition is more elaborate than the folk tune, with "two addditional parts or reprises, not one as Lomax gives it." The tune came to be called "Rousseau's Dream," apparently by confusion: Another Rousseau score allegedly came to him while he was suffering from delerium. The title, according to Percy A. Scholes in The Oxford Companion to Music, was given by J. B. Cramer." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc). Played as fiddle tune and instrumental solo.
Go an' tell Aunt Dinah, Go an' tell Aunt Dinah
Go an' tell Aunt Dinah de old grey goose is dead
Died last Friday, died Last Friday
Died last Fiday with a pain in de back o' her head
She was savin', she was savin'
She was savin' to make a feather bed.
Walkin' roun dat green tree, walkin' round dat green tree,
Walkin' round dat green tree, the ole grey goose is dead.
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