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Hog Eye Man, The (Sailor’s Shanty Version)
Traditional Old-Time Breakdown and Song- Widely known;
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes;
DATE: 1853 (Hog Eye-Jigg) by Meade; (1928 recording, Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers);
RECORDING INFO: Arkansas Sheiks. Whiskey Before Breakfast, Bay 204, LP (1975), cut# 14. New Lost City Ramblers. New Lost City Ramblers, Vol. 3, Folkways FA 2398, LP (1961), cut# 18 (Hogeye). Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers. Echoes of the Ozarks, Vol. 1, County 518, LP (1977), cut# 9. Southern Michigan String Band. Transplanted Old Timy Music, Pine Tree PTSLP 509, LP (197?), cut# 2. Hog-Eyed Man -Hollow Rock String Band. Traditional Dance Tunes, Kanawha 311, LP (197?), cut# 6. Strong, Luther. American Fiddle Tunes, Library of Congress AFS L62, LP (1971), cut# 19. Sumner, Marion. Best of Seedtime on the Cumberland, June Appal JA 0059C, Cas (198?), cut# 10.
OTHER NAMES: "Hog Eye an' a 'Tater;" Hog-Eyed Man; "Granny Will Your Dog Bite;" "Row the boat ashore with a Hog-eye Man;" "The Jackfish;" "Old Bob Ridley;" "Betty Martin," "Boatin' Up Sandy," "Brad Walters," "Chippy/Gippy Get Your Haircut," "Hog Eye and a Tater," "Hog Eye," "Jake Gilly," "Old Mother Gofour," "Old Granny Rattletrap," "Pretty Betty Martin," "Very Pretty Martin," "Sally in the Garden," "Tip Toe Fine," "Fire on the Mountain."
SOURCES: Bayard, Hill Country Tunes, #75 "Hog Eye an' a 'Tater"; Sharp, English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, vol. 2, 360 (#250) "The Hog-eyed Man" (Clay County, Kentucky), 361 (#251) "The Jackfish" (Callaway, Virginia); Brown, The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore vol. 5, 133 (#194-D) "Old Bob Ridley" (Watauga County, North Carolina); Sandburg, American Songbag, p. 380 "Hog-Eye" ("A lusty and lustful song developed by negroes of S.C."). A hillbilly recording is by Crockett Mountaineers on "Old-Time Medley." Additional discussion and citations may be found for "The Hog-Eyed Man" in American Fiddle Tunes (Library of Congress, AFS L62). American Songbag, Harcourt Brace Jovan..., Sof (1955), p380. Hog Eye and' a 'Tater -Yaugher, Irvin; Jr.. Hill Country Tunes: Instrumental Folk Music of Southwestern Penn, Amer. Folklore Society, fol (1944), 75. The Hog-Eye Man- American Songbag, Harcourt Brace Jovan..., Sof (1955), p410; New Lost City Ramblers. Old-Time String Band Songbook, Oak, Sof (1964/1976), p 67; Kaufman, Alan. Beginning Old-time Fiddle, Oak, sof (1977), p93. Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc;
NOTES: "Hog Eye Man" is a fiddle tune and sailor's shanty. I have indicated which type at the top with the title. The song has been categorized by Meade with Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineer's "Sally in the Garden." It is another of the Nordic tunes that float with "Fire on the Mountain," "Betty Martin," and "Granny Will Your Dog Bite."
"Hog-Eyed Man" is a well-known fiddle tune in the older repertory of the South. A nineteenth-century set in Winner's Collection of Music for the Violin, p. 75 "Hog Eye--Jigg" suggests that the song may have had some circulation on the popular stage. "Jigs" of this sort were a mid-nineteenth-century American genre in 2/4 time often associated with the minstrel stage or other popular entertainment. Modern song and fiddle versions suggest, however, that it is widespread in Southern tradition and may have gone from there to the popular stage, not the other way around. There may be an African-American connection to the song; it is certain that a sailor's shanty, with associated lyrics but a different tune, turns up in older sea shanty collections. The words to the song are typically bawdy.(Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers recorded a 'chicken in the breadpan' variant under the title 'Hog-eye' which has some lyric similarities with the 'Hog-eye Man', best known as a sea shanty. It is included in NLCR 'Old-Time String Band Songbook' and has been released on CD in Dr Bill McNeil's box set 'Somewhere in Arkansas: Early Country Music Recordings From Arkansas 1928-1932' Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies, no catalogue number.
Here's some info from The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore; the folklore of North Carolina, collected by Dr. Frank C. Brown during the years 1912 to 1943, in collaboration with the North Carolina Folklore Society:
186- Row The Boat Ashore
Originally a capstan chanty and so reported from Lancashire (JFSS II 248, where the refrain is "Roll the boat ashore") and from Newcastle (JFSS v 43, where the refrain is "And you rowed about the shore"). Divers American texts lack the refrain which
gives the title to our North Carolina text but yet are held together by the mention of "the *hog-eye" or "the hog-eyed man." So texts from Kentucky (SharpK 11 360), Alabama (ANFS 246, Negroes), and Wisconsin (JAFL lii 49-50). Sandburg reports
it from South Carolina Negroes (ASb 380) and from an old sailor apparently at San Francisco (ASb 410-11), both times with a refrain which evidently represents our "Row the Boat Ashore." Our North Carolina text has lost all consciousness of the sea.
"Rodybodysho" Reported by Evelyn Moody from Stanly county.
1. As I went through my harvest field
A black snake caught me by the heel.
I wheeled around to run my best
And I ran my head in a hornets' nest.
Chorus: Rodybodysho and a hog eye.
Rodybodysho and a hog eye.
All I eat is hog eye meat.
2 As I went down the Cheraw hill
There I met my brother Hill
Sitting on a potato hill
Cracking the bones of a whippoorwill.
3. I went down to the pea patch
To see if the ole hen had hatched.
The eggs was pipped, the chickens all gone,
Down in the low-grounds scratching up corn.
*'Written 'hawk's-eye man' in JFSS n 248, where it is noted that a text in Tozer's Sailor Songs writes it "ox-eyed man." The meaning of the phrase is not clear. Sharp. JFSS v 43, quotes Whall's Ships, Sea Songs, and Shanties: "the barges in which gold-diggers were conveyed to California in 1849 were known as 'hog-eyes.' " Odum, JAFL xxiv
270, says that among the Negroes "on a hog" means "broke." But in the songs listed above it seems to have an erotic implication.
Also in Brown: 232- Sal's in the Garden Sifting Sand
This is perhaps only a form of the chanty "Row the Boat Ashore.' At least it has the "hog-eyed man" in common with that song. It is known also in Kentucky ( Shearin 38, SharpK 11 360) and Wisconsin (JAFL LII 49-50, from Kentucky), and Sandburg reports
it from an old sailor (ASb 410-11). For the meaning, or meanings, of "hog-eye" see the headnote to "Row the Boat Ashore.'
'Sal's in the Garden Sifting Sand.' Reported by Charles R. Bagley as "heard from his grandparents, Air. and Mrs. W. R. Dudley, in Moyock." Moyock is in Currituck county. The same two lines are reported also by Miss Minnie Bryan Farrior from Duplin county.
Sal's in the garden sifting sand.
All she wanted was a hog-eyed man.
LYRICS:
The hog-eye man is the man for me,
He came a sailin' from o'er the sea
And a hog-eye!
Railroad man with his Hog-Eye,
Row the boat ashore with her Hog-Eye, Oh,
What she wants is a Hog-Eye man!
Oh Sally's in the garden pickin' peas,
Her golden hair hangin' down to her knees.
And hand me down my walkin' cane,
I'm going to see Miss Sally Jane.
Oh, the Hog-Eye man gave a fond look of love,
And it charmed Sally's heart which is pure as a dove.
Oh, and who's been here since I been gone,
Some big buck man with his sea-boots on.
If I catch him here with me Sally any more,
I'll sling me hook and go to sea some more.
Oh, Sally in the parlor a-sittin' on his knee,
A-kissin' of the sailor who'd come o'er the sea.
Sally in the garden siftin' sand,
And the hog-eye man sittin' hand in hand.
Sally in the garden pickin' peas,
With a little hog-eye all sittin' on her knees.
Oh, the hog-eye man is the man for me,
For he is blind and he cannot see.
Oh, in San Francisco, there she'll wait,
For the hog-eye man to come through her gate.
Oh, a hog-eye ship and a hog-eye crew,
A hog-eye mate and a skipper too.
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