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Buggerboo/Boogerboo/Bugaboo/ Booger Boo
Traditional Old-Time, Breakdown. Western North Carolina, Western Va.
ARTIST: Sung by Dan Tate at his home in Fancy Gap, Carroll County, VA. 11.8.79)
Listen: Joe Craft- (banjo solo #1) Booger Boo
Listen: Joe Craft- (banjo solo #2) Booger Boo
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: 1800s
RECORDING INFO: Buggerboo/Boogerboo [Laws O 3]
Us - Bugerboo
Boogerman [Me IV-E 14?]
Rt - Sandy Boys
Krassen, Miles. Krassen, Miles / Appalachian Fiddle, Oak, sof (1973), p30b
Krassen, Miles. Krassen, Miles / Clawhammer Banjo, Oak, sof (1974), p47b
Bugerboo [Laws O 3]
Rt - Foggy, Foggy Dew
Griffin, Mrs. G. A.. Morris, Alton C. / Folksongs of Florida, Univ. Florida, Bk (1950), p160/# 84 [1934-39] (Bugaboo)
Harmon, Mrs. Samuel. Emrich, Duncan / Folklore on the American Land, Little, Brown, sof (1972), p518 [1930] (Bugaboo)
Neal, Riley. Logsdon, Guy (ed.) / The Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing and Other Songs.., U. Illinois, Bk (1989), P201/#39 [1968/08] (Boogaboo)
Red Clay Ramblers & Al McCanless. Red Clay Ramblers with Fiddlin' Al McCanless, Folkways FTS 31039, LP (1974), trk# 1 (Boogerboo)
Tate, Dan. Appalachia, The Old Traditions, Home Made Music LP-001, LP (1983), trk# A.05 [1979/08/11]
Unidentified Informant. Thompson, Harold W.(ed.) / Body, Boots & Britches, Dover, Bk (1939), p421 [1930s] (Buggery Boo)
RELATED: "Sandy Boys" "Foggy Dew"
OTHER NAMES: "Buggery Boo" "Bugaboo"
SOURCES: Vance Randolph; Wolk Folklore MP3; Folk Index; Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc;
NOTES: (Roud 558/1118, Laws O3) The song is related to Sandy Boys (See Sandy Boys) and a line in the chorus is "Waiting for the boogerboo." The song is also known as "boogerboo," which means usually boogerman or boogieman (also buggyman), an evil spirit or ghost, the devil. Boogerboo is usually pronounced buggerboo, bugaboo, buggyboo or boogieboo.
Further investigation shows BOOGERBOO: verb [1940s-60s] (US Black) to behave in an unpleasant manner, to be insincere. BOOGERBOO n. 1) An unpleasent situation or person. 2) commotion, as in- He raised a big boogerboo about nothing.
A song and tune are more recently from the repertoire of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, fiddler Edden Hammons. According to Kuntz, Gerry Milnes has found ribald words accompanying the tune in West Virginia. The modern “revival” or “festival” version may have stemmed from a ‘mislearning’ of Hammon’s tune by Bob Herring.
Thompson 1939, Body, Boots and Britches:
From the other side of the North Country at Potsdam, comes The
Buggery Boo, composed in the somewhat indecorous manner of an
older day. The Buggery Boo apparently was what we call the Bogie-
Man:
When I was young and in my prime,
I was counted a roving blade;
When I was young and in my prime,
I courted a pretty fair maid.
I courted her a winter's night,
A summer day or two,
And how to win that pretty maid's heart
I did not know what to do.
Oh that pretty maid came to my bedside
When I was fast asleep;
Oh that pretty maid came to my bedside
And most bitterly did weep.
She wept, she wailed, and tore her hair,
And her heart was full of woe,
When into the bed she quickly fled
For fear of the buggery boo.
Now 'twas all the forepart of that night
That we did sport and play;
'Twas all the latter part of that night
That she lie in me arms till day.
The night bein' gone and the day comin' on,
That fair maid cried, "Oh, I'm undone!"
But says I, "Rise up and don't you be alarmed,
For the buggery boo am gone."
{Now I took that maid and I married her,
I called her for my wife;
I took that maid and married her.
Now don't you think 'twas right?
I never chide her of her faults,
No, damn my eyes if I do!
But every time the little boy cries,
I think of the buggery boo !
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Notes: Foggy Dew
This extremely well known and widespread song has not hitherto appeared in the
Journal in any complete form, I think. It seems specially persistent in East Anglia,
where I have often heard it sung not only to variants of the above AABA tune, but
also to two-lined BA versions. Presumably the North Yorkshire version mentioned
by Kidson (Traditional Tunes, p. 166) was related to Cox's tune, for Kidson says it had
Irish characteristics of 'Ye Banks and Braes'.
In East Anglia I have also heard the song as 'The Bugaboo' ('For fear of the
bugaboo', 'The bugaboo is gone', etc.). This I take to be the original form of the
song. Pace Mr. James Reeves' theoryI that here 'dew' = virginity, etc., I suspect that
the phrase 'foggy dew' is merely a substitution borrowed from a quite unrelated Irish
song of the same name.-A. L. L.
Cecil Sharp noted a very similar version to this at Chew Stoke in Somerset.
Among the four versions of the text in the Gavin Greig collection in King's College
Library, Aberdeen, is one from Belle Robertson in which the 'Foggy Dew' is replaced
by 'Boodie Bo'. This appears similar to the 'Bugaboo' that Mr. Lloyd has heard in
East Anglia, especially as this text contains the line 'I dressed my comrade all in
white, my true love for to meet', i.e. the man gets someone to dress up as a ghost in
order to frighten the girl. In spite of this, I agree with Mr. Reeves that the 'Foggy
Dew' is the older form of the song, and that 'Bugaboo' and 'Boodie Bo' are later
substitutions.
I disagree with Mr. Lloyd that the Irish song called 'The Foggy Dew' is unrelated.
Many of the English versions of 'The Foggy Dew' are sung to variants of the tune that
was published in 1840 in Bunting's Ancient Music of Ireland. I think for various reasons
the original 'Foggy Dew' text has largely died out in Ireland, its place being taken by
more recent and more literary texts built round the original title, including the well-
known one written by A. P. Graves.-P. N. S
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Some lyrics were given by Joe Craft--- They said:
Listen: Joe Craft- (banjo solo #1) Booger Boo
I courted here on a cold winter night,
The winter season too.
I jumped in the bed and covered over my head,
I's scared of the booger boo.
Listen: Joe Craft- (banjo solo #2) Booger Boo
Never told her of my faults
Dang me if I do
Every time the baby cries,
I think of the booger boo.
This second set of lyrics is also found in Sandy Boys.
Biography & Notes Mike Yeats: Dan Tate was born in 1896 and must at one time have known a phenomenal number of songs and banjo tunes. Though frail and almost totally blind, his welcome to a complete stranger was as warm and genuine as could be. After recording many of his songs in 1979 and 1980 I called to see him again in 1983. "Did I sing you Lily Monroe?" he asked when I walked through his doorway. "It must be about England, 'cause they send for a 'London' doctor to heal up his wounds." He also recounted how one recent snowfall had almost ended his life. "I thought I was a gonner, Mike. I woke up and it was quiet, real quiet; and cold, real cold. The stove had gone out and I had no wood inside. I tried to open the door but it just wouldn't open. The house had just about disappeared in the snow. Well...I wrapped some blankets around me and sat in the chair, expecting to die. And do you know? It wasn't long before I heard my friends coming to dig me out!" Strength of character, tenacity and sensitivity are words that I'd use to describe Dan and his neighbours.
Dan had been recorded for the Library of Congress by Professor Fletcher Collins, of Elon College, NC. Library records date these recording to 1941, although Dan was adamant that they had been made in 1938. I had heard one or two of Dan's recordings prior to meeting him and found that he still just loved to sing. One morning he began to talk about 'the war'. I thought that he was talking about the Great War, until he began to describe the American Civil War Battle of Shiloh. As a young man he had known people who had fought in the Civil War. Never before had history seemed so real!
In its original form, an apprentice seduces his master's daughter with the help of a friend disguised as a ghost (or bugaboo). Somehow or other the term bugaboo became changed - at least in English versions of the song - into the phrase the foggy dew, sparking off all kinds of fanciful explanations for the meaning of this term. A full, and far more accurate, history of the song will be found in Bob Thomson's article The Frightful Foggy Dew (Folk Music Journal IV:1. 1980 pp. 35-61). In Dan's version, verse 3 is a 'stray' from The Gypsy Laddie (Child 200). Dan's comment to me that the boatman 'must have been a Lord or something' suggests that the stanza was present when Dan first heard the song.
Doug Wallin sings his version of The Foggy Dew on Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 40013, while an English version of the song can be heard on the album Songs of Seduction (Rounder 1778), where it is sung by Phil Hammond of Norfork. The accompanying booklet notes for the latter were clearly written without knowledge of the Thomson article mentioned above. Burl Ives' well-known recorded version of the song was probably learnt from Carl Sandburg's American Songbag (1927).
Notes Kuntz: BUGGERBOO and see “Booger-Boo.” Old‑Time, Fiddle Tune/Song. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Mike Yates (2002) says that in its original form the ballad relates the seduction of a master’s daughter by an apprentice, with the aid of a friend disguised as a ghost, or bugaboo. It is this term bugaboo that was altered in the process of transmission to the famous “Foggy Dew” (See Bob Thompson’s article “The Frightful Foggy Dew”, Folk Music Journal IV:1, 1980 pp. 35-61). Musical Traditions MTCD321-2, Dan Tate (et al) – “Far in the Mountains, Volumes 1 & 2” (2002).
BUGERBOO- Dan Tate 1979
Come all you jolly boatman boys
Who want to learn my trade.
The very first wrong I ever done,
Was courting of a maid.
I courted her the winter's night,
And a summer season too.
And when I gained her free good will
I knew not what to do.
Last night I lay in a fine feather bed,
With the squire and a baby.
Tonight I'll lay in a barn of hay
In the arms of *Egyptian Daisy.
Wake up, wake up, my pretty little miss,
Wake up, for day has come.
Wake up, wake up, my pretty little miss,
For the bugerboo has gone.
Yes I went to see this little girl,
I loved her as my life.
I took this girl and I married her,
And she made me a virtuous wife.
But I never tell her of her faults,
And dog me if I do.
But every time the baby cries
I think of the bugerboo.
*Gypsy Davy, a verse from this old ballad
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