BLUES, MELLOWS, BALLETS
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(Contents)
LEVEE MOAN (Music arr. by Leo Soirerby)
THOSE GAMBLER'S BLUES (Music arr. by Ruth Crawford
GOT DEM BLUES (Music arr. by Henry Francis Parks
DE BLUES AIN' NOTHIN' (Music arr. by Leo Soirerby)
WHEN A WOMAN BLUE (Music arr. by Leo Soirerby)
COO-COO (PEACOCK SONG) (Music arr. Thonald Otterstrom)
GREAT GAWD, I'M FEELIN' BAD Alfred G. Wathall
O MY HONEY, TAKE ME BACK Alfred G. Wathall
WHAT KIN' O' PANTS DOES THE GAMBLER WEAR Alfred G. Wathall
JOE TURNER (Music arr. by Leo Soirerby)
TIMES GETTIN' HARD, BOYS (Music arr. by Leo Soirerby)
I'M SAD AND I'M LONELY Edward Collins
C. C. RIDER Elizabeth Marshall
YOU FIGHT ON Alfred G. Wathall
SATAN'S A LIAH Alfred G. Wathall
BALLET OF DE BOLL WEEVIL (Music arr. by Leo Soirerby)
DE TITANIC
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DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH in On the Trail of Negro Folk-Song:
"I dare hint delicately that while it is possible that neither the vocalist nor I might derive joy from singing as singing, yet as a folk-lorist I should experience delight at hearing a folk song put across in such a way that I could capture it. I urge that as a song hunter I should rather hear a Negro in the cornfield or on the levee or in a tobacco factory, than to hear Galli-Curci grand-operize."
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LEVEE MOAN
Both Mississippi and Ohio river levees have had versions of this one, which reached up into the
region roundabout Pendleton, Indiana, where it was heard by Lloyd Lewis, the Free Quaker pegged
elsewhere in this book. A sonorous lament, is " Levee Moan.*' fully equal to many Gregorian
chants that could be named. Some of its lines assuage the bitterness of our short mortal pilgrimage,
some have an overtone aiming at the world beyond the flesh, while others are rooted amid such plain
realities as the iron pathway of "dat ol' K. C. line."
LEVEE MOAN
1 Ah'm goin' whah nobody knows mah name, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!
Ah'm goin' whah nobody knows mah name, Ah'm goin' whah nobody knows nuih mime!
Ah'm goin' whah dey don't shovel no snow, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!
Ah'm goin' whah dey don't shovel no snow, Ah'm goin' whah dcy don't shovel no snow!
3 Ah'm goin whah de chilly wind don't blow, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!
Ah'm goin' whah de chilly wind don't blow, Ali'm goin' whah de chilly wind don't blow!
Note: Those who so choose may use the following "K. C. line" couplet in place of one the above stanzas; or the El Paso version (B) below.
Ah'm goin' on dat ol' K. C. line, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!
Ah'm goin* on dat ol' K. C. line, Ah'm goin' on dat oP K. C. Hnef
B. LEVEE MOAN
1 O baby, where you been so long? Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord,
O baby, where you been so long? baby, where you been so long?
2. O honey, let your hair hang down, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord,
O honey, let your hair hang down, O honey, let your hair hang down.
3. O honey, your hair grows too long, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord,
O honey, your hair grows too long, honey, your hair grows too long.
THOSE GAMBLER'S BLUES
This may be what polite society calls a gutter song. In a foreign language, in any lingo but that of the U. S. A., it would seem less vulgar, more bizarre. Its opening realism works on toward irony and fantasy, dropping in its final lines again to blunt realism. Texts and melody are from the song as given (A) by Henry McCarthy of the University of Alabama, and (B) by Jake Zeitlin and Jack Hagerty of Fort Worth and Los Angeles.
THOSE GAMBLER'S BLUES
1 It was down in old Joe's bar-room
On a corner by the square,
The drinks were served as usual,
And a goodly crowd was there.
$ On my left stood Joe Me Kenny,
His eyes bloodshot and red,
He gazed at the crowd around him
And these are the words he said:
8 "As I passed by the old infirmary,
I saw my sweetheart there,
All stretched out on a table,
So pale, so cold, so fair.
4 Sixteen coal-block horses,
All hitched to a rubber-tired hack,
I Went down to St. Joe's infirmary,
To see my woman there;
She was layin* on the table,
So white, so cold, so fair.
2 Went up to see the doctor,
"She's very low," he said;
Went back to see my woman,
Good God! she's layin' there dead,
Spoken: She's dead!
3 Let her go, let her go, God bless her,
Wherever she may be!
There'll never be another Kfce her,
ThereH never be another for me.
Carried seven girls to the graveyard,
And only six of 'em comin' back.
6 O, when I die, just bury me
In a box-back cout and hat, [chain
Put a twenty dollar gold piece on my watch
To let the Ix>rd know I'm si and in' pat.
6 Six crap .shooters as pall l>earers,
Let a chorus girl sing me a song
With a jazz band on my hearse
To raise hell as we go along."
7 And now you've heard my story,
I'll take another shot o' boo/e;
If anybody hapj>ens to ask you,
Then I've got those gambler's blues.
B
4 I may Ix. 1 ! killed on the ocean,
I may be killed by a cannonball,
But let me tell you, buddy,
That a woman wan the caue of it all.
5 Seventeen girls to the graveyard,
Seventeen girls to sing her a song,
Seventeen girls to the graveyard
Only sixteen of 'cm comin' back.
6 O sixteen coal-black horses,
To carry me when I'm gone.
O flowers on the coffin,
While the burial's carried OIL
GOT DEM BLUES
The very essence of the majority of blues," wrote Abbe Niles, "is found in the traditional
line, common property of the race: 'Got de blues, but too dam' mean to cry.'" . . . One of the
earliest blues is presented here, as heard, recorded, and harmonized by Henry Francis Parks, com-
poser, music critic, theater console player, author of the book, " Jazzology of the Pipe Organ." It
was moaned by resonant moaners in honky tonks of the southwest.
GOT DEM BLUES
Got dem blues, but I'm too mean, lordy,
I'm too damned mean to cry.
Oh! I got dem blues!
Got dem blues, but I'm too damned mean to cry.
Yes! I got dem dirty blues,
But I'm too damned mean to cry;
Yes! mean to cry.
Sweet Daddy! Uh-huh! Trun me down! Uk-kuht
DE BLUES AIN' NOTHING
This blues was sung in honky tonks of the southwest in years before the appearance of "mean moaners "in cafes where a tuxedo is requisite. . . . "B-l-u-e"at the close of each verse is sometimes "b-a-d."
DE BLUES AIN' NOTHIN'
Ah'm gonna build mahself a raft,
An' float dat ribbah down.
Ah'll build mahself a shack
In some oP Texas town,
Mhm, mhm!
'Cause de blues ain' nothin'
No, de blues ain' nothin'
But a good man feelin' b-l-u-e.
Ah'm goin' down on de levee,
Goin' to take mahself a rockin' chair.
K mah lovin' man don' come,
Ah'll rock away from there,
Mhm, mhm!
'Cause de blues ain' nothing
No, de blues ain' nothin'
But a good man feelin' b-l-u-e.
8 Why did you leave me blue?
Why did you leave me blue?
All I do is sit
And cry for you,
Mhm, mhm!
'Cause dc blues ain' nothin',
No, de blues ain' nothin'
But a good man feelin' b-l-u-e.
WHEN A WOMAN BLUE
This arrangement is based on the song as heard at the Wisconsin Players' House in Milwaukee, where it arrived through an Oklahoma poet named Ellis, who heard it from negroes in the cotton fields of Texas. It is an early blues, not to be hurried in its rendition; if you feel like giving it very slow and very draggy that is the way for you to give it; it is a massive, lugubrious gargoyle of a song.
When a woman blue, when a woman blue,
She hang her little head and cry
When a woman blue, when a woman blue,
She hang her little head and cry
(Hah hah hah high!)
When a man get blue
He grab a railroad train and ride.
WHEN A WOMAN BLUE
I'm go'n lay my head, I'm go'n lay my head,
Down on dat railroad line
I'm go'n lay my head, I'm go'n lay my head,
Down on dat railroad line
(Lah hah hah bine!)
Let de train roll by,
And dat '11 pacify my min'.
COO-COO (PEACOCK SONG)
An old negro voodoo woman in South Carolina told of all the animals holding a meeting. They
elected the peacock to be queen. She sang an acknowledgment, spoke with music, her apprecia-
tion of the honor conferred on her. Thus we have the Coo-Coo murmur, moan and cry, presented
here from Arthur Billings Hunt, baritone concert singer, and authority in several fields of American
folk and art song.
Coo - coo, coo - oo - oo,
Coo - coo coo-oo - oo,
Coo - coo, coo ah - li - oh!
GREAT GAWD, I'M FEELIN' BAD
A desolated heart trumpets humiliation. . . . Florence Heizer of Osage, Kansas, heard this often from a negro woman, who, over the ironing board, could reply to any mourning dove that sat in the cottonwoods.
Great Gawd, I'm feelin* bad,
I ain't got the man that I thought I had!
O MY HONEY, TAKE ME BACK
Tubman K. Hedrick heard this often from a hotel kitchen in Memphis, over and over, day on day. He said of the lyric "'Love is not love that too openly proclaims itself," adding, "It is a solo with no audience intended or wanted but one person in the whole world. And as such, the melody carries the lyric persuasively."
1. O my honey, take me back,
my dahlin', I'll be true.
I am mo'nin' all day long,
O my honey, I love you.
I have loved you in joy and pain,
In de sunshine and de rain,
O my honey, heah me do,
O my dahlin', I love you.
WHAT KIN' O' PANTS DOES THE GAMBLER WEAR
The striped elegance of gamblers, the hazards of the meat supply, the troubles of money, love, and sleep, are themes here. The verses are casual, typical of the impromptu, the "make-up" song of the negro, "a product of economic and labor conditions," as Gates Thomas notes in No. 5 of the Publications of the Texas Folk Lore Society. His songs came from "shiftless and shifting day laborers and small croppers who follow Lady Luck, Aphrodite, and John Barleycorn." . . . The tune is close to certain Frog's Courting melodies. . . . "Gwain" is more accurate than "gwine" or"g'on." . . . When the wooden slats, on which a mattress lay, broke and went "blam-to-blam," it took a good sleeper to go on drowsing.
1 What you gwain to do when the meat gives out, my Baby?
What you gwain to do when the meat gives out, my Honey?
What you gwain to do when the meat gives out?
Gwain to set 'roun' my do* with my mouf in a pout,
For sometime.
2 What kin' o' pants does the gambler wear, this mo'nin'?
What kin' o' pants docs the gambler wear, this evenin'?
What kin' o' pants does the gambler wear?
Big-legged stripes cost nine a pair
This mo'nin'.
3 What kin* o' shoes does the gambler wear, this mo'nin'?
What kin* o' shoes does the gambler wear, this evenin'?
What kin' o' shoes does the gambler wear?
Yaller toothpicks, cost 'leven a pair
This ovcnin'.
4 Slats in the bed went blam-to-blam, this mo'nin';
Slats in the bed went blam-to-blam, this evenin';
Slats in the bed went blam-to-blam;
Kop' on a-sleepin* like I didn't give a damn
For sometime.
5 Til be blamed ef I can see, my Baby,
1*11 be blamed ef I can see, my Honey,
I'll be blamed ef I can see
How all my money got away from me.
For sometime.
JOE TURNER
W. C. Handy refers to Joe Turner as a grandaddy of blues. " In some sections it was called Going Down the River For Long, but in Tennessee it was always Joe Turner." Joe was a brother of Pete Turner, once governor of Tennessee, and clothed with police powers Joe Turner took prisoners from Memphis to Nashville, " handcuffed, to be gone no telling how long." Thus Handy explained the song to Dorothy Scarborough who recalled lines:
Dey tell me Joe Turner's come to town.
He's brought along one thousand links of chain;
He's gwine to have one nigger for each link!
He's gwine to have dis nigger for one link!
Handy used the old theme for building Joe Turner blues with such interesting lines as:
Sweet Babe, I'm goin to leave you,
And the time ain't long,
No, the time ain't long,
If you don't b'lieve I'm leavin'
Count the days I'm gone.
(1) Got my man an gone. .
(2) Come with foh - ty links of chain.
Dey tell me Joe Turner he done come,
Dey tell me Joe Turner he done come,
Got my man an* gone.
Dey tell me Joe Turner he done come,
Dey tell me Joe Turner he done come,
Come with fohty links of chain.
TIMES GETTIN' HARD, BOYS
When Rebecca Taylor sang her spirituals for us in Columbia, South Carolina, she was asked if she knew other songs, not spirituals. "When you were a girl wasn't there something that boys and girls would sing at each other for fun, for mischief?" Her eyes lighted, she gave a soprano chuckle, and sang this verse out of the years when she was young. The "yellow boy' 1 amid the black girls made an impression; it started a song.
Times gettin' hard, boys, money gettin' scarce;
If times don't be no better hyar, boun' to leave dis place.
Take my true love by de hun' lead her roun' de town;
When she see dat yellow boy she almos' faint away.
I'M SAD AND I'M LONELY
How many lies will a free young man tell a young lady? As many as the cross-ties on the rail-
road or as many as the stars in the sky. He will lie and lie. His lies are endless. Thus the cast-off
woman speaks of him. She wants a mountain cabin. She wants to be so far away that she won't
bother her friends, the blackbirds. She sings it slowly. There is time for deliberation. Yet a
phrase now and then, shaded with hate or pity, comes swiftly, almost gutturally and as a threat.
The song came to me from a Dallas, Texas, woman who got it from Tennessee folks.
I'M SAD AND I'M LONELY
1 I'm sad and I'm lonely, my heart it will break;
My sweetheart loves another, Lord, I wish I wuz dead!
My checks once were red as the bud on the rose,
But now they are whiter than the lily that grows.
2 Young ladies, tak' wahnin', tak' a wahnin' from me.
Don't waste your affections on a young man so free.
He'll hug you, he'll kiss you, he'll tell you mo* lies,
Than the cross-ties on the railroad or the stars in the sky.
3 I'll build me a cabin in the mountains so high,
Where the blackbirds can't see me and hear my sad cry.
I'm troubled, I'm troubled, I'm troubled in mind;
Ef trouble don' kill me, I'll live a long time.
C. C. RIDER
John Lomax and I heard this song (A) in Austin, Texas, in an old saloon, The Silver King, operated as a soft drink parlor by a Mexican negro, Martinez. After two negroes with guitars had sung "The Original Blues/' "Franky and Johnny," ''Boll Weevil," and other pieces, Martinez himself favored us with "C. C. Rider," which may derive from "easy rider." . . . The Sunshine Special, a
crack railroad train, has crossed Texas every day for many years. ... In the last line of the first verse the word "blowed" is given long, slow, controlled and powerful, like the whistle of an onrushing overland train on a southwestern prairie; likewise the word "shine" in the last line of the second verse. . . . Text B is from Gates Thomas and his south Texas negro songs.
1 Dat Sunshine Special romin' around de bend,
It blowed jus' like it nevah blowod )>ofoh,
It blowed jus* like it ncvah blowed befoh,
It blowed jus* like it nevah blowed befoh.
2 If I had a head-light like on a passenger train,
I'd shine my light on cool Colorado Springs,
I'd shine my light on cool Colorado Springs,
I'd shine my light on cool Colorado Springs.
3 Oh C. C. Rider, now see what you done, done,
You made me love you, now your sweetheart's come,
You made me love you, now your sweetheart's come,
You made rno love you, now your sweetheart's come.
B. C. C. RIDER
1 C. C. Rider, just see what you have done!
You made me love you, now yo* woman's done come!
You made me love you, now yo' woman's done come!
You made me love you, now yo' woman's done come!
2 You caused me, Rider, to hang my head and cry;
You put me down; God knows I don't see why!
You put me down; God knows I don't see why!
You put me down; God knows I don't see why!
YOU FIGHT ON
Brave counsel and spacious melody for a pilgrim's progress. ... A North Carolina woman at
Purdue University heard this for years as a girl from a negro woman cook in her home. "Often
when I was in the kitchen she would say to me, 'Come on, Miss Mary, get on de tune wagon, you
ain't on de tune wagon.'"
If yo' brother done you wrong
Take him to yo'self alone;
Tell him brother you done treated me wrong.
You fight on, you fight on,
With yo' swo'd in yo' han',
You fight on, yes, you fight on.
Lawdy you fight on
With yo' swo'd in yo' han'
You fight on.
SATAN'S A LIAH
In Duluth, Minnesota, I heard Margaret Moore Nye, of a Richmond, Virginia, family, deliver
this spiritual as she heard it in the kitchen of her girlhood home. She seated herself in a chair,
crossed her knees, threw her head back, closed her eyes, patted the time with a foot, impersonating
the mammy in Richmond from whose lips she heard it many years.
1 Satan's a liah, an' a conjuh too;
If you don' watch out he'll conjuh you.
Satan's a liah, an' a conjuh too;
If you don' watch out he'll conjuh you.
Ain' gonna worry my Lawd no mo',
Ain' gonna worry my Lawd no mo'.
2 Satan's got a mighty big shoe,
If you don' watch out he'll slip it on you.
Satan's got a mighty big shoe,
If you don' watch out he'll slip it on you.
Ain' gonna worry my Lawd no mo', etc.
3. Goin' to heaven on a angel's wing,
When I get there you'll hear me sing.
Coin' to heaven on a angel's wing,
When I get there you'll hear me sing.
Ain' gonna worry my Lawd no mo', etc.
4. When I get to heaven goin' to sit yah down,
Coin' to put on my robe an' starry crown.
When I get to heaven goin' to sit yah down,
Coin' to put on my robe an' starry crown.
Ain' gonna worry my Lawd no mo', etc.
DE BALLET OF DE BOLL WEEVIL
"What's the song you're singing?" John Lomax once asked a group of negroes, who answered, "Dat's de ballet of de boll weevil." They have "ballets" (narratives), "reels" (dance songs), and "mellows" (melodies), besides improvisations called "make-up" and "jump-up" songs. . . . There were planters who gazed on ravaged cotton fields and felt the multiplied myrmidons of the boll weevil to be as terrible as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The imagination of the negro field workers played shrewdly and whimsically on the phantom that came so silently to destroy the work of man on the land that man claims to own. . . . Gates Thomas recorded three boll weevil verses in 1897, many more in 1906, and wrote in 1926 as to calamity and destruction by the insect plague, that it had been "more than averted, thanks to the application of scientific findings to cotton-growing and to the practical and creative work of seed breeders; but the ballad is still imaginatively true to the time and region in which it arose communally." . . . Text and tune here are from Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama; we forego boll weevil blues heard in Nashville, Tennessee, and on Lang Syne Plantation at Fort Motte, South Carolina.
DE BALLET OP DE BOLL WEEVIL
1. De farmer say to de weevil:
"What you doin' on de square?"
De li'l bug say to de farmer:
"Got a nice big fambly dere;
Goin' to have a home, goin' to have a home."
2 Farmer say to de boll weevil:
"You's right up on de square."
Boll weevil say to de farmer:
"Mah whole fambly's there,
I have a home, I have a home."
3 Bull weevil say to de lightnin' bug:
"Can I get up a trade wid you?
If I was a lightnin' bug,
I'd work the whole night through,
All night long, all night long."
4 Don' you see dem creepers
Now have done me wrong?
Boll weevil got my cotton,
An' de merchan' got my corn;
What shall I do? I've got de blues.
5 Boll weevil say to de merchan':
"Bettah drink yo' col' lemonade;
W'en I get through wid you,
Goin' to drag you out o' dat shade,
I have a home, I have a home."
6 Boll weevil say to de doctah:
"Bettah pull out all dem pills,
W'en I get through wid de farmer,
Can't pay no doctah's bills.
I have a home, I have a home."
7 Boll weevil say to de preacher:
"Bettah close up dem church doors,
W'en I get through wid de farmer,
Can't pay de preacher no mo'.
I have a home, I have a home."
8 Boll weevil say to de farmer:
"You can ride in dat Fohd machine.
But w'en I get through wid yo' cotton,
Can't buy no gasoline,
Won't have no home, won't have no home."
9 Boll weevil say to de farmer:
"I'm a sittin* here on dis gate,
W'en I get through wid de farmer,
He's goin' to sell his Cadillac Eight,
I have a home, I have a home."
10 Boll weevil say to his wife :
"Bettah stan' up on yo' feet,
Look way down in Mississippi,
At de cotton we'd got to eat,
All night long, all night long."
11 De farmer say to de merchan*:
"I want some meat an* meal!*'
"Get away f'm here, yo' son-of-a-gun,
Yo' got boll weevils in yo' fieP,
Goin' to get yo' home, goin* to get yo' home.* 1
12 Boll weevil say to de farmer,
"I wish you all is well!"
Farmer say to de boll weevil :
"I wish you wuz in hell!
I'd have a home, I'd have a home.**
DE TITANIC
The central facts of an immense sea tragedy are here. The main narrative lines of each stanza cadence a proud ship sailing at high speed, ending with a slow drawn drag, the silence of the empty sea that follows the "sinkin* down." As a poem, in accuracy of statement, in stresses of details, and in implicative quality, some would rate this above Longfellow's "Wreck of the Hesperus." The arrangement here is based on the singing of Miss Bessie Zaban, formerly of Georgia and now of Chicago; a number of verses were sent to her by C. H. Currie of Atlanta, Georgia. . . The dialect is imperfectly rendered. Negro troops sang the song crossing the submarine zone and in the trenches overseas. The verses move smoothly, in even pulsations, like the stride of a great ocean liner with its turbines in good working order. The chorus words "ocean" and "Titanic" sway like a swiftly "moving thing abruptly slowed down, struck, staggering and bewildered, while the words " sinkin' down " have the grave, quiet suspension of a requiem.
DE TITANIC
1 De rich folks 'cided to take a trip
On de fines' ship dat was ever built.
De cap'n presuaded dese peoples to think
Dis Titanic too safe to sink.
Chorus: Out on dat ocean,
De great wide ocean,
De Titanic, out on de ocean,
Sinkin' down!
2 De ship lef ' de harbor at a rapid speed,
'Twuz carry in* every thin' dat de peeples need.
She sailed six-hundred miles away,
Met an icebug in her way.
3. De ship lef de harbor, 'twuz runnin' fas'.
'Twuz her fus' trip an' her las'.
Way out on dat ocean wide
An iccbug ripped her in de side.
4 Up come Bill from de bottom flo'
Said "De water wuz runnin' in de boiler do'.
Go back, Bill, an' shut yo' mouth,
Got forty-eight pumps to keep de water out!
5 Jus' about den de cap'n looked aroun',
He seed de Titanic wuz a-sinkin' down.
He give orders to de mens aroun':
"Get yo' life-boats an' let 'em down!"
6 De mens standin' roun' like heroes brave,
Nothin' but de wimin an' de chillun to save;
De wimin an' de chillun a-wipin' dere eyes,
Kissin' dere husbands an' friends good-bye.
7 On de fifteenth day of May nincteen-twelve,
De ship wrecked by an icebug out in de ocean dwell.
De people wuz thinkin' o' Jesus o' Nazaree,
While de band played "Nearer My God to Thee!"