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Hound Dog Song (Ya Gotta Quit Kicking My Dog Aroun’)
Traditional Old-Time, Breakdown; US.
ARTIST: Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers - 4 January 1926 (Co 15084).
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes. DATE: Late 1800’s. Popularized in 1912 as a campaign song.
RECORDING INFO: Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, "Ya Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dog Aroun'" (Columbia 15084-D, 1938). Thomason, Ron. Mandolin and Other Stuff, Kanawha RT-3, LP (198?), cut#B.04; Golden Ring. Golden Ring. A Gathering of Friends for Making Music, Folk Legacy FSI-016, LP (1964), cut# 4
OTHER NAMES: Gotta Quit Kickin My Dog Around; You Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dog Around; Every Time I Go To Town
RELATED TO: “Sally Ann;” "Sandy Land;" “Great Big Taters in Sandy Land”
SOURCES: Randolph 512, "The Hound Dog Song;" Thede (The Fiddle Book), 1967; pg. 81. Lomax-FSNA, "The Hound Dawg Song;" AKA and see "Great Big Taters in Sandy Land." Darling-NAS, pp. 253-254, "The Hound Dog Song;"
NOTES: This was the campaign song of Champ Clark, senator from Missouri, during his campaign for President of the United States. He lost. As a matter of fact, James Beauchamp "Champ" Clark was never even nominated for the Presidency, though he came very close. As Congressman from Missouri, he had been a leader in the fight to strip the Speaker of the House of his dictatorial powers in that chamber. This made him an obvious candidate for the Presidency in 1912. But the Democratic Party required that candidates receive two-thirds of the votes of the delegates, and Clark -- though he was the clear favorite among the candidates -- never did gain that many votes (this was in the days when most delegates were chosen by caucus). Eventually his support started to fail, and a series of deals made Woodrow Wilson the Democratic nominee. With the Republican Party split between the factions of Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, the Democratic nominee's election was assured. Thus Clark was only a rule change away from being elected President -- but not a single person ever voted for him in a national election. Randolph heard a story which based this on a pre-Civil-War incident in Forsyth, Missouri. Proof is, of course, lacking.
According to Alan Lomax: Some say "The Hound Dawg Song," a favourite Ozark mountain song, originated before the Civil War, when a country boy named Zeke Parish had a tussle with a townie, who had kicked his dog. Old Aaron Weatherman, Swan Post Office, Taney County, Missouri, concurs -- "I was there and knowed Zeke and his paw and the hound, too." Some of his neighbours laugh at old Zeke and say that "The Hound Dawg Song" is a recently composed piece, while others swear that Daniel Boone brought the song to Missouri. It became universally popular at the time when Arkansas's favourite son, Champ Clark, who was candidate for the presidency of the United States, used it as his campaign song. Since that time civic orgainzations and booster clubs in both Arkansas and Missouri have claimed it for their state. The tune is the old fiddler's favourite, "Sandy Land" or "Sally Anne."
According to Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America, New York, 1978, p. 314. "They Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dog Aroun'" was a comedy favorite for James Bland’s minstrel troupe. The melody of "The Hound Dog Song" is the similar to “Sally Ann” and “Great Big Taters”.
Charles Wolfe and Mark Wilson wrote the following informative note to the song in the liner notes to Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers 'The Kickapoo Medicine Show' Rounder LP 1023: "This pleasant urban reflection of rurality was copyrighted in 1912 by Webb M. Oungst and Cy Perkins, a pseudonym for Mrs John Stark, wife of the famous pioneer publisher of ragtime. Its melody derives from the 'Sally Ann' family of tunes but the lyrics reflect the practice of an experienced literary hand, for all its unwashed pretentions. The populist Missouri Democrat, Champ Clark, employed this ditty as his theme that year in his unsuccessful bid for the presidential nomination against Woodrow Wilson. The song became nationally known through this exposure and has been seriously proposed as the state song of Missouri. It may be doubted, however, whether the Skillet Lickers had Champ Clark in mind when they recorded it in 1926 …"
Ya Gotta Quit Kicking My Dog Aroun’ (Skillet Lickers)
Me and old Lem Briggs and old Bill Brown
Took a load of corn to town
Old Jim dog, the on'ery pup
He just naturally followed us up.
Chorus: Every time I come to town
The boys go to kicking my dog around
Makes no difference if he's a hound
Ya gotta quit kicking my dog around.
As we driv' past the country store
A passel of yaps came out the door
Jim he scooted behind a box
Showered him with sticks and rocks.
They tied a tin can to his tail
And run him past the county jail
That just naturally makes me sore
Bill he cussed and Lem he swore
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