492
Way Down Below
This is a medley of parts from various songs. The refrain I
have not found elsewhere. Stanza 4 belongs to "Goodbye, My
Lover, Goodbye'; stanza 5, belonging to the minstrel favorite 'Jim
Along Joe,' is likely to appear in a multitude of burnt-cork— and
other — songs.
No title. Contributed by William C. Gumming of Brunswick county,
with the note: "As we children grew older we used to delight in going
out into the country to see Grandma and Uncle Billy, and on summer
nights as we sat out on the porch or in the yard we would always try
to get him to sing to us. Of course some of his songs, like Dem Golden
Slippers,' were not really folklore, but others, like the following favorite
of ours, could be nothing else."
I Oh, a good beef steak an' a mutton chop
W^ay down below !
Make dat nigger's lip go flip flap flt)p.
Way down below ! Way down below !
01e^\unt Kittie am honin' for de sea.
Way down below !^
' Lines 2 and 4-6 constitute the refrain, repeated thus in each stanza.
The contributor notes that a variant of the refrain went thus:
Way down below, way dt)wn below,
Old Aunt Jemima
He hi ho.
2 Bought a rooster for fifty cents ;
The son of a gun jumped over the fence.
3 Oh, a Sister Sal an' a ole Aunt Loos
Telegraph news to terbacker juice.
4 Steamboat comin' around' de ben'
Loaded down wid railroad men.
5 Oh. my ole mistis promised me
W'en she died she set me free.