American Songs for American Children. United States Folk-Song Series: No. 2
B. A. Botkin
Music Educators Journal, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Feb. - Mar., 1944), p. 39
American Songs for American Children
UNITED STATES FOLK-SONG SERIES-NO. 2
THIS GROUP of "American Songs for American Children" is a mixed one, but in its very mixture it. illustrates the diversity of folk-song origins and the corollary that it is not the source but the history of a song that makes it a folk song. Two of the songs are especially good illustrations of this principle. In "Captain Jinks," we have a street song which has been attributed variously to William Horace Lingard and T. Maclagan, and which has become widely known through its minstrel use as well as through Clyde Fitch's play, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, produced in 1901. It is chiefly as a play-party song and a dance tune that "Captain Jinks" has been taken over by oral tradition and become to all intents and purposes an American folk song.
Woody Guthrie's "So Long," on the other hand, may be considered a folk song in the making. Springing as it does from a genuine folk background and a long line of "hard times" songs, and created by a folk artist, it stands a good chance of becoming assimilated and perhaps adapted by oral tradition.
"My Lover Is a Sailor Boy" and "Down in the Valley" are love songs of contrasting origins, the one redolent of the sea and the other a traditional song from the Kentucky mountains, in some versions (e.g., "Birmingham Jail") clearly bearing the stamp of its jailhouse origins.
This is the second in the current series of songs of the United States presented by the MENC Committee on Folk Music. The third selection will be published in the next issue of the JOURNAL.
-B. A. BOTKIN
Captain Jinks----------------------------------------------------------
I'm Cap-tain Jinks of the Horse Ma-rines,
I feed my horse on corn and beans,
I get dressed up for the big parades for
I'm the pride of the ar - my.
I teach young la- dies how to dance,
How to dance, How to dance,
I teach young la - dies how to dance,
For that's the style in the ar - my.
Down in the Valley---------------------------------------------------------
Down in the val - ley, the val - ley so low,
Hang your head o - ver, hear the winds blow.
Hear the winds blow, dear, hear the winds
blow, Hang your head o - ver, hear the winds blow.
Down in the valley the mockingbird wings,
Telling my story, here's what he sings:
"Roses love sunshine, violets love dew,
Angels in heaven know I love you."
My Lover Is a Sailor Boy-----------------------------------------------
My lov - er is a sail- or boy so gal - lant and
bold He's tall as a flag-staff on - ly nine-teen years old,
And he sails o'er the wide seas to lands far and near, And my
heart it is a - heav- i- ing be - cause he is not here
My heart it is a-heav-i-ing just like the rolling sea
For fear his affect-shi-uns don't still point towards me;
For there's young girls in all parts of the world I am told,
Especially for a young man only nineteen years old.
So Long, It's Been Good to Know You---------------------------------
I've sung this song but I'll sing it a . gain, Of the
place where I lived on the wild wind - y plains, In the
month called A - pril, the coun - ty called Gray, And
here's what all of the peo - pie there say:
CHORUS
So long, it's been good to know you,- So long, it's
been good to know you,_ So long, it's been good to
know you, This dust - y old dust is a - get - ting my
home, I've got to be mov - ing a - long.
A dust storm hit and it hit like thunder,
It dusted us over and covered us under,
It blocked out the traffic and blocked out the sun,
And straight for home all the people did run, singing:
We talked of the end of the world, and then
We'd sing a song, and then sing it again.
We'd set for an hour and not say a word,
And then these words would be heard.
-----------------------------------------------------------
NOTES: The MENC Committee on Folk Songs of the United States wishes to make acknowledgment to all who are cooperating in the presentation of this series of articles in the Music EDUCATORS JOURNAL. "My Lover Is a Sailor Boy" is taken from Yours for a Song by Janet E. Tobitt, New York. Recorded and transcribed by Marie Gaudette from the singing of Clara Rawson, Providence, R. I., 1933. Used here by permission. "Down in the Valley" is from Music, the Universal Language, published by Silver Burdett Company, New York, and is used here by permission. Woody Guthrie's "So Long" was included in the collection American songs for American Children prepared by the Folk Song Committee and published for distribution at the 1942 biennial meeting (Milwaukee). For a more extended comment on this song see the notes by Alan Lomax in the Music EDUCATORS JOURNAL, May-June 1942, in which issue the song was reproduced from the Committee's pamphlet in connection with an article dealing with the MENC folk-song project. In selecting "So Long" for this varied group of "samples," the Committee was influenced in some degree by the many requests received from JOURNAL readers that it be reprinted.