Chapter I. Background Resources in Negro Song and Work

NEGRO WORKADAY SONGS

CHAPTER I
BACKGROUND RESOURCES IN NEGRO SONG AND WORK

To discover and present authentic pictures of the  Negro's folk background as found in his workaday  songs is a large and promising task of which there are  many phases. Here are spontaneous prodocts of the  Negro's workaday experiences and conflicts. Here are reflections of his individual strivings and his group  ways. Here are specimens of folk art and creative
effort close to the soil. Here are new examples of the  Negro's contributions to the American scene. Here is  important material for the newer scientific interest  which is taking the place of the old sentimental viewpoint. And here is a mine of descriptive and objective  data to substitute for the emotional and subjective  attitudes of the older days.

It is a day of great promise in the United States when  both races, North and South, enter upon a new era  of the rediscovery of the Negro and face the future with  an enthusiasm for facts, concerning both the newer  creative urge and the earlier background sources.  Concerning the former, Dr. Alain Locke recently has  said: [1]

'Whoever wishes to see the Negro in his  essential traits, in the full perspective of his achievement and possibilities, must seek the enlightenment  of that self-portraiture which the present development  of the Negro culture offers." One of the best examples   of that self-portraiture is that of the old spirituals,  long neglected, but now happily the subject of a new  race dedication and appreciation. Now comes another master index of race temperament and portrayal, as found in some of the Negro's newer creations. No  less important, from the viewpoint of sheer originality  and poetic effort as well as of indices of traits and  possibilities, are the seemingly unlimited mines of  workaday songs, weary blues, and black man ballads.  In a previous Volume [2] we presented a sort of composite  picture from two hundred songs gathered two decades ago and interpreted with something of prophetic  evaluation. In this volume of Negro Workaday Songs  is presented a deeper mine of source material, rich in  self-portraiture and representative of the workaday  Negro.

In his Peter the Czar, violent story of "lashed sentences," perfectly suited to the depiction of primitive character, Klabund pictures vividly a certain Great  Enemy about whose "shivering shoulders lay a rainbow like a silken shawl." Digging to the syncopated  rhythm of song and fast-whirling pick, a Negro workman sings of another rainbow, equally vivid and
shoulder-draped, more concrete, personal, and real:

Ev'ywhere I look this,
Ev'ywhere I look this mo'nin',
Looks like rain.

I got rainbow
Tied 'round my shoulder,
Ain't gonna rain,
Lawd, ain't gonna rain. [3]

In addition to the poetic imagery in this seemingly  unconscious motor-minded product, one may glimpse  evidences of simple everyday experience, wishful  thought, childlike faith, workaday stolidity, physical satisfaction, and subtle humor. But he can find still  more humor and experience, with a good bit of metaphor thrown in for good measure, in the "feet rollin" stanza of another wanderer's song of the road:

I done walk till,
Lawd, I done walk till
Feet's gone to rollin',
Jes' lak a wheel,
Lawd, jes' lak a wheel.

Resourcefulness, humor, defense mechanism, imagination, all might be found in the spectacle of a  group of Negroes singing over and over again on a hot July day the refreshing lines,

Oh, next winter gonna be so cold,
Oh, next winter gonna be so cold,
Oh, next winter gonna be so cold,
Fire can't warm you, be so cold.

With the thermometer around a hundred, and the work  of digging at hand, this song of "parts," with some of  the singers using the words, "be so cold, be so cold"  as an echo, undoubtedly had peculiar merit.

Perhaps there have been few, if any, lines of poetry  more popular than Wordsworth's "The light that  never was on sea or land." The Negro worker sings  of a more earthly yet equally miraculous light to  guide his pathway, when he complains,

Now ev'y time I,
Time I start 'round mountain,
My light goes out,
Lawd, Lawd, my light goes out.

I'm gonna buy me,
Buy me magnified lantern,
It won't go out,
Lawd, Lawd, it won't go out.

How much of symbolism is to be found in the  Negro's workaday songs? How much subjective imagery, how much unconscious allegory? There are  abundant examples of the free use of symbolism in his  love songs and popular jazz appeals. But what does  he mean when he sings,

Ever see wild cat
Hug a lion, Lawd, Lawd?
My ol' bear cat
Turn to lion, Lawd, Lawd.

Ever see lion
Run lak hell, Lawd, Lawd?

Or contrast this simple individual song, with its humor and easy-going rhythm, with the power and appeal of
group singing. Here is a goodly party of two-score
white folk, seated at twilight under the trees in a
grove, joyous guests at a turkey dinner near the old
colonial home. There is merriment. Song and jest,
toast and cheer abound. The waiters have gone.
Then from the kitchen door comes the song of Negroes,
beginning low, rising in volume, telling of the sinking
of the Titanic. What is it in that final harmony of
"God moved upon the waters," sung by a Negro group,
which silenced the merrymakers into willing rec-
ognition that here may be perfect art and perfect
effect? Does this Negro minstrel type, rendered
thus in native setting, become for the moment the
perfect expression of folk spirit and folk art?

Hundreds of verses dedicated to the business of
moving about give evidence that the trail of the
black knight of the road is strewn with spontaneous

 

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song, often turned into polished phrase. A favorite
stanza has long been descriptive of being "on road here
few days longer, then I'll be going home." Sung
again and again, the song takes on a new form but loses
nothing of its emphatic meaning:

I'm gonna row here,
I'm gonna row here
Few days longer,
Then I'll be gone,
Lawd, I'll be gone.

For, says the worker, "If I feel tomorrow like I feel
today, I'm gonna pack my suitcase and walk away,"
and "reason I'm workin' here so long, hot flambotia
and coffee strong."

Following the trail of the workaday Negro, there-
fore, one may get rare glimpses of common backgrounds
of Negro life and experience in Southern communities.
Here were the first real plantings of the modern blues,
here songs of the lonesome road, here bad man ballads,
here distinctive contributions in songs of jail and chain
gang, here songs of white man and captain, here
Negro Dr. Jekyls and Mr. Hydes. Here are found
new expressions of the old spirituals and remnants
still surviving. Here man's song of woman is most
varied and original, and woman's song of man is best
echoed from days and nights of other times. Here
are reflected the epics of John Henry, Lazarus, Dupree,
and the others. Here are folk fragments, cries and
"hollers," songs to help with work, physical satisfaction
and solace, the "Lawdy-Lawdy" vibrato of evening
melancholy and morning yodel. Here may be found
the subliminal jazz, rare rhythm and movement,
cooperative harmony as characteristic as ever the old
spirituals revealed. Nevertheless, too much emphasis

 

6 Negro Workaday Songs

cannot be placed upon the danger of over-interpre-
tation, for while the workaday songs provide a seem-
ingly exhaustive supply of mirror plate for the reflection
of folk temperament and struggle, too much analysis
must not obscure their vividness or the beauty and
value of their intrinsic qualities.

It is important to note the extent to which the
notable popular blues of today, more formal em-
bodiment of the Negro's workaday sorrow songs, have
come from these workaday products. Here are true
descendants of the old worshipers who sang so well of
the Rock in a weary land. And echoing from Southern
distances, from Memphis and Natchez, from New
Orleans and Macon, from Charleston and Atlanta,
and from wayside roads and camps, from jail and chain
gang, come unmeasured volume of harmony, unnum-
bered outbursts of song, perfect technique of plaintive
appeal. Many of the most plaintive lines of blues
yet recorded were gathered decades ago from camp and
road in Mississippi before the technique of the modern
blues had ever been evolved. Eloquent successors
to the old spirituals with their sorrow-feeling, these
songs of the lonesome road have gathered power and
numbers and artistic interpretation until they defy
description and record. Today the laborer, the mi-
grant, the black man offender constitute types as dis-
tinctive and inimitable as the old jubilee singers and
those whom they represented. Wherever Negroes
work, or loaf, or await judgment, there may be heard
the weary and lonesome blues so strange and varied
as to reveal a sort of superhuman evidence of the folk
soul. No amount of ordinary study into race back-
grounds, or historical annals of African folk, or elabo-
rate anthropological excursions can give so simply and
completely the story of this Negro quest for expression,

 

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freedom, and solace as these low-keyed melancholy
songs.

And what names and lines, words and melodies,
records and improvisations of the new race blues!
Plaintive blues, jolly blues, reckless blues, dirty dozen
blues, mama blues, papa blues, — more than six hundred
listed by one publisher and producer. Here they are —
the workaday sorrow songs, the errant love songs, the
jazz lyrics of a people and of an age — as clearly dis-
tinctive as the old spirituals. And how like the road
songs and the gang lines, straight up from the soil
again, straight from the folk as surely as ever came the
old spirituals.

Samples of the growing list of blues, some less elegant,
some more aggressive, will be found in Chapter II.
And of course we must not forget the bad man blues:
Dangerous Blues, Evil Blues, Don't Mess With Me Blues,
Mean Blues, Wicked Blues, and most of all the Chain
Gang Blues, Jail Blues, and the Cell-bound Blues.

All boun' in prison,

All boun' in jail,

Col' iron bars all 'roun' me,

No one to pay my bail.

And the singer presents, as one of his standard ver-
sions of many songs, a regular weekly calendar:

Monday I was 'rested,
Tuesday I was fined,
Wednesday I laid in jail,
Thursday I was tried,
Friday wid chain gang band,
Saturday pick an' shovel,
Sunday I took my rest,
Monday wanta do my best.

 

8 Negro Workaday Songs

Perhaps the most common concept found in the chain
gang and road songs and appearing here and there in
all manner of song is the concept of a letter from home,
the inability to go home without "ready money,"
the attempt to borrow from the captain, or to get a
parole.

Every, every mail day,

I gits letter from my mother,

Cryin', "Son, come home,

Lawdy, son, come home."

I didn't have no,
No ready-made money,
I couldn't go home,
Lawd, couldn't go home.

A constant source of song is the conflict between
actual conditions and desirable ends, between life as it
is and ideals of wishful dreaming. "I want to go
home," says the workman, but "I don't want no trouble
wid de walker." The resulting product is absence
from home, absence of trouble with the captain or
walker, and abundance of song.

I don't want no trouble,

I don't want no trouble,

I don't want no trouble wid de walker.

Lawd, Lawd, I wanta go home.

Me an' my buddy jes' come,
Me an' my buddy jes' come,
Me an' my buddy jes' come here.
Lawd, Lawd, wanta go home.

Again and again the Negro wanderer portrays home,
parents, brothers and sisters, friends, as the most
highly esteemed of life's values — striking paradox to
the realism of his practice. Idealism in song and
dreams, in workaday songs as well as spirituals,

 

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alongside sordidness in living conditions and physical
surroundings, appear logical and direct developments
from the type of habitation which the Negro common
man has ever known.

The Negro "bad man" who sings sorrowfully of his
mother's admonitions and his own mistakes, glories
also in the motor-imaged refrain:

In come a nigger named Billy Go-helf,
Coon wus so mean wus skeered uf hisself;
Loaded wid razors an' guns, so they say,
'Cause he killed a coon most every day.

A later chapter is devoted to this notable character,
the "bad man," whose varied pictures represent a
separate Negro contribution. Here are new and
worthy Negro exhibits to add to the American galaxy
of folk portraits: Railroad Bill alongside Jesse James,
the Negro "bad man" beside the Western frontiersman,
and John Henry by Paul Bunyan. For from the
millions of Negroes of yesterday and as many more
today, with their oft-changing and widely varying
economic and social conditions, has come a rare and
varied heritage of folk tradition, folk character, and
folk personality. Much of this might remain forever
unknown and unsung were it not for the treasure-
house of Negro song, the product of a happy facility
for linking up the realities of actual life with wishful
thinking and imaginative story.

Of the grand old "saints," white haired "Uncles"
and "Aunties," we have viewed from near and far
scores of inimitable examples. Of the thousands of
musicianers, songsters and workers, and those who sing
"down that lonesome road," recent epochs have mir-
rored many. But what of the real and mythical
jamboree breakers and bad men, or of Po' Lazarus and

 

10 Negro Workaday Songs

Stagolee, or of John Henry, "forehanded steel-drivin'
man" and ideal of the Negro worker?

Here are rare folk figures silhouetted against a sort
of shifting race background with its millions of working
folk and wanderers moving suddenly and swiftly across
the scene. A brown-black army of ramblers, creepers,
high flyers, standin' men, all-night workers, polish
men, "stick and ready" from the four corners of the
States — Lazarus, Billy Bob Russel, Shootin' Bill,
Brady, Dupree, and the others. And then John
Henry, stately and strong in contrast, noble exponent
of sturdy courage and righteous struggle, faithful to
death.

John Henry went to the mountain,
Beat that steam-drill down;
Rock was high, po' John was small,
He laid down his hammer an' he died,
Laid down his hammer an' he died.

A chapter on "Man's Song of Woman" will make but
a small beginning of a large task. Its sequel must be
deferred until the lover's specialisms can be published
with a liberal usage of the psychiatrists' terminology.
A chapter on "Woman's Song of Man" ought also to
have a companion sequel in the book of Negro sym-
bolism. A chapter on "Workaday Religious Songs"
can present only a small portion of those now being
sung, but will be representative of the present heritage
of the old spirituals. A chapter on the miscellaneous
fragments, "hollers," lines, incoherent and expressive
"Lawdy-Lawd-Lawds" gives one of the best pictures
of the Negro workaday character and habits. Some of
these types make a very good safety valve for the Negro
singer; in a different way their plainness may restrain
the enthusiast from setting too much "store" by all
the Negro's songs. The characters of John Henry and

 

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Left Wing represent two types, one the mythical and
heroic, the other the real and commonplace, both
typical of the Negro's idealism and his actual life.
The examples of "movement and imagery" are as
characteristic of the Negro workaday experience as were
the harmonies and swaying of the old spirituals. They
are indices to guide judgment and interpretation of
the Negro temperament. In each of these chapters,
it will be understood, only enough material is presented
to illustrate the case, including, however, always the
most representative specimens which the authors have
been able to collect within their field and time limit.
Much that is similar will necessarily await publication
in volumes in which the chief objective will be pres-
ervation and completeness rather than interpretation.

Many pictures of the workaday Negro are presented
in this volume through the medium of his songs.
They are silhouetted, as it were, at first against a
complex background of Negro life and experience. The
pictures are vivid, concrete, distinct, often complete.
But most of all, perhaps, they have been moving
pictures. From the first glimpse of the Negro singer
with his "feet's gone to rollin' jes' lak a wheel," to
the last great scene of John Henry dying with the
"hammer in his hand," there is marvelous movement
alongside rare imagery. Sometimes rhythm and
rhyme, but always movement, have dominated the
Negro's chief characterizations. And this movement
in the workaday songs is as much a distinctive feature
as were the swaying bodies, the soothing rhythm, and
swelling harmony of the old spirituals. Picture the
Negro workingman in his song and story life and you
picture him on the move.

It is scarcely possible to describe this element of
movement in the Negro workaday songs. And yet

 

12 Negro Workaday Songs

the mere citation and classification of representative
examples will suffice to point out the particular quali-
ties of action which might justify the added element
of epic style, if one remembers that the singer's con-
cept of the heroic, while very real, is not exalted in the
Greek sense. There are those who do not feel that
the Negro's workaday songs are characterized by the
qualities of poetry; yet do they not arouse the feelings
and imagination in vivid and colorful language?
The type of language used — that is the Negro's own.
In the same way there can be no doubt of his songs
emphasizing the quality of action; his heroes and
principal figures, like his language, reflect his concepts
and tell his stories. Whether epic or heroic,

I'm the hot stuff man,

From the devil's land,

I'm a greasy streak o' lightning,

Don't you see, don't you see?

has plenty of action and imagery in it. And it is
characteristic of much of the Negro workaday style of
talk, imagination, and thought.

Many of the pictures are vivid because of the action
concept and the rhyming metaphors.

In come a nigger named Slippery Jim,
None of de gals would dance wid him,
He rech in his pocket an' drew his thirty-two,
Dem niggers didn't run, good Gawd, dey flew.

There was also a woman, one Eliza Stone, from a bad,
bad land, who threatened to break up the jamboree
with her razor but who also "jumped in de flo', an'
doubled up her fist, say 'You wanter test yo' nerve
jes' jump against this.' " Note further a varying
reel of moving characters and scenes.

 

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Police got into auto
An' started to chase that coon,
They run 'im from six in the mo'nin',
Till seven that afternoon.

The coon he run so bloomin' fas'

Till fire come from his heels,

He scorched the cotton an' burnt the corn,

An' cut a road through farmers' fiel's.

The continuous search after the workaday folk song
will always provide one of the most important guides
to the "discovery" of the Negro. The task of finding
and recording accurately the folk expression is a
difficult one under most circumstances. Under cer-
tain circumstances it is an easy task, and always an
interesting one. If we keep a record of efforts, taken
at random, as experimental endeavor, in a cross
country visit through North Carolina, South Carolina,
Tennessee and Georgia, about ten per cent, at best, of
the requests for songs will be successful. There are
other times, when setting and procedure are worked
out well, when almost one hundred per cent success
would be attained. In most instances the Negro is
at his "best" when being urged to cooperate in the
rendering of his folk songs. By his "best" is meant
that he reveals a striking nature and strong personality,
whether in affirming stoutly that he knows no songs
now or that he has forgotten what he used to know.
He protests vigorously that he does not sing well
enough, that he cannot say the words of songs unless he
can sing, that he cannot sing unless others are singing,
that he has to be in the spirit of the song, or that he
will get some songs together and bring them in, or that
he will bring a quartet or a pal. Rarely ever does he
"produce" if let alone with only a first approach. Nor
can he be blamed. He is entirely within his own self-
protecting domain, so that his attitude may be put

 

14 Negro Workaday Songs

down, not only as a characteristic one but also as a
commendable one. He has his own fun, too, in the
situation. In general there are several types from
which little success may be expected. The more
educated and sophisticated Negro not only does not
as a rule cooperate, but looks with considerable
condescension upon those who seek his help. There
are many who believe that all songs desired are for
immediate transcription to printed music or phono-
graph record. These are of little assistance. Others
feel that some hidden motive is back of the request.
Still others for various reasons do not cooperate.
Nor will the Negro student or musician himself find
ready cooperation among his common folk who feel
constrained to withhold their folk art from the learned
of their own race.

Perhaps the most striking observation that comes
from the whole experience is the seemingly inex-
haustible supply of songs among the workaday Negroes
of the South. We have yet to find a "bottom" or a
limit in the work songs among the crowds of working
men in one community. Just as often as there is
opportunity to hear a group of Negroes singing at
work, just so often have we found new songs and
new fragments. There is so far no exception to this
rule. Likewise we have yet to find an individual,
whose efforts have been freely set forth in the offering
of song, whose supply of songs has been exhausted.
Time and time again the approach has been made,
with the response, "Naw, sir, cap'n, I don't know no
songs much," with an ultimate result of song after
song, seemingly with no limit. Partly the singer is
honest; he does not at the time, think of many songs
nor does he consider himself a good singer; but when
he turns himself "loose" his capacity for memory and
singing is astonishing.

 

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The same general rule with reference to dialect is
used in this volume as was the case in The Negro and
His Songs. x There can be no consistency, except the
consistency of recording the words as nearly as pos-
sible as rendered. Words may occur in two or three
variations in a single stanza and sometimes in a single
line. The attempt to make formal dialect out of
natural speech renders the product artificial and less
artistic. We have therefore followed the general
practice of keeping the dialect as simple as possible.
Dialect, after all, is a relative matter. It is the sort
of speech which is not used in one's own section of the
country. As a matter of fact, much of what has
passed as Negro dialect is good white Southern usage,
and there is nothing to justify the attempt to set aside
certain pronunciations as peculiar to the Negro simply
because a Negro is being quoted. Consequently we
have refrained from the use of dialect in all cases where
the Negro pronunciation and the usual white pronun-
ciation are the same or practically the same. If the
reader will grasp the basic points of difference between
Negro and white speech and will then keep in mind the
principle of economy, he will have no difficulty in
following the peculiarities of dialect.

The principle of economy will be found to operate
at high efficiency in Negro speech. It will nearly
always explain the apparent inconsistencies in dialect.
For example, the Negro often says 'bout and , roun >
for about and around. But he might vary these to
about, aroun\ 'round, and around in a single song,
depending upon the preceding and succeeding sounds.
He would say, "I'll go 'bout two o'clock," but he

x The Negro and His Songs, pp. 9-11, 293-94. There is a good discus-
sion of dialect in James Weldon Johnson's Book of American Negro Spirituals,
pp. 42-46.

 

16 Negro Workaday Songs

also would say, "I went about two o'clock," because
in the former case it is easier to say ''bout than about,
while in the latter the reverse is true.

Rhythm is also related to dialect. In ordinary
speech most Negroes would say broke for broken,
but if the rhythm in singing called for a two-syllable
sound they would say broken rather than broke.

Very few of the popular songs which we heard
twenty years ago are found now in the same localities.
The places that knew them will know them no more.
The same disappearing process is going on now, only
more rapidly than formerly because of the multitude
of blues, jazz songs, and others being distributed
throughout the land in millions of phonographic
records. One of the first tasks of this volume is, there-
fore, to take cognizance of these formal blues, both in
their relation to the workaday native creations and as
an important segment of the Negro's music and his
contribution to the American scene. In the next
chapter we shall proceed, therefore, to discuss the
blues.

FOOTNOTES- Chapter I

[1] The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke.

[2] The Negro and His Songs, by Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson.

[3] Musical notation will be found in Chapter XIV.