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Pateroller Song/ Run, *Johnny Run/ Run, Boy Run
Old-Time, Song & Breakdown
ARTIST: from Skillet Lickers 1927.
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: 1800s; printed in 1851 (Serenader's Song Book)
RECORDING INFO: Victor 40205 (78 RPM), Eck Robertson (Texas) {1929}. Dr. Humphrey Bate & His Possum Hunters, (Brunswick 275, 1928)
Fiddlin' John Carson, (OKeh 40230, 1924)
Sid Harkreader & Grady Moore, (Paramount 3054, 1927)
Uncle Dave Macon, (Vocalion 15032, 1925)
Mose "Clear Rock" Platt, (AFS 196 A1, 1933; on LC04)
Gid Tanner & his Skillet Lickers, (Columbia 15158-D, 1927)
Clint Howard, Gaither Carlton, Fred Price & Doc Watson, "Run, Jimmie, Run" (on WatsonAshley01)
RELATED TUNES: Fire on the Mountain; Rattlesnake Bit the Baby
OTHER NAMES: *The original title, with the N word, is no longer acceptable, and has been replaced by variety of alterative titles. "Run, Smoke, Run," "Run, Boy, Run" "Pateroller Will Catch You" "Pateroller'll Catch You;" "Run Jimmie, Run (Watson)"
SOURCES: Ceolas; Folk Index; Pete Sutherland [Phillips]. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, Vol. 1), 1994; pg. 181. Tradition TLP 1007, Hobart Smith - "Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians" (1956). Kenny Baker [Brody]; Bruce Hutton [Kuntz]; Tommy Jackson [Phillips]. Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; pg. 238. Kuntz (Ragged but Right), 1987; pg. 203-204. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, Vol. 1), 1994; pg. 204. Cassette C-7625, Wilson Douglas - "Back Porch Symphony." Folkways 2402, Bruce Hutton- "Old Time Music...It's All Around." County 750, Kenn.
NOTES: G Major. Standard. AABB. *The original title, with the "n" word, is no longer acceptable, and has been replaced by variety of alterative titles. There is documentary evidence that this was a popular song amongst African-Americans and should be considered an African-American folk song.
The song is reported to be about pre-Civil War times when plantation owners hired men to patrol for runaway slaves or slaves out after curfew without a pass. See also related tune "Rattlesnake Bit the Baby." The song has been dated by some to pre-Civil War times when patrols were formed in nearly every Southern county with a sizable slave population to ensure the slaves stayed on the plantation and did not "wander;" this was especially so after the scare of the slave insurrections of the 1820's and 1830's. Hutton says it goes back to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 when frontiersmen revolted against government regulation. [Kuntz]
The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. In the repertoire of the John Lusk Band, a black string band from Cumberland Plateau region of Ky./Tenn.
In Lomax we find the following explanation (quoted at several hands' remove):
"Just after the Nat Turner Insurrection in 1832 the Negroes were put under special restrictions to home quarters, and patrolmen appointed to keep them in, and if caught without a written pass from owner they were dealt with severely then and there; hence the injunction to 'Run, *Johnny, Run, the Patter-roller Git You' to the tune of 'Fire in the Mountain....'"
"Pateroller Song" from Brown Collection:
457 Run, *Johnny, Run
With this refrain — coninionly completed with "the paterol'll ketch you" — have heen sung at various times and in various places a medley of more or less unrelated stanzas. The refrain itself or one or the other part of it has been found in Virginia (JAFL xxviii n8), Kentucky (SharpK ii 359, TNFS 12), North Carolina (ANFS 169), Mrs. Steely 164 (1935), Alabama (ANFS 168-9), Mississippi (JAFL xl 303), Louisiana (TNFS 24), Missouri (OFS II 338), and in Talley's Negro Folk Rhymes 34. The "new-cut road" also is a favorite image, commonly rhyming with "toad"; so in Virginia (TNFS 164), Alabama (ANFS 247), Mississippi (JAFL XXVIII 179, but without the toad), Texas (Owens, Szmng and Turn 70, again without the toad), and Indiana (SSSA 237).
The snake-bite and the hornet's nest also appear without the "run, Johnny, run" refrain. See the headnotes to 'Banjo Sam' and to 'Clare de Kitchen' in this volume. The snake is perhaps a borrowing, as Dr. White suggests, from 'Springfield Mountain.'
'Run, *Johnny, Run.' Obtained sometime in the period 191 2- 14 from
C. R. Bagley of Moyock, Currituck county.
1 I went through the farmer's field.
The hlack snake hit me on my heel.
I jumped up and run my hest.
Stuck my head in a hornet's nest.
Chorus:
Oh, run, Johnny, run, tlie pateroles catch you ;
Run, Johnny, run, it's almost day.
2 I went [to] the railroad track.
Hitched an engine to my hack.
Combed my head with an engine wheel;
It gave me the headache in my heel.
No title. Reported by V. C. Royster from "an old man who lived in Cumberland county before the [Civil?] War. Probably sung in Wake county also."
Johnny tried to cross the field.
Black snake struck him on the heel.
Johnny tried to do his best
And stuck his head in a hornet's nest.
Chorus: Run, Johnny, run,
De patter roller catch you.
Run, Johnny, run,
De patter roller catch you.
No title. Obtained by Dr. J. F. Royster from William C. Daubken of the class of 1915 at the University of North CaroHna.
As I went down the new-cut road
1 met a possum and a toad;
And every time the toad did jtimp
The possum hid behind a sttimp.
Refrain: Oh, run, Johnny, run,
The pateroller ketcher,
Run, Johnny, run ;
It's almos' day.
'Run, Johnny, Run.' From J. H. Rurrus of Weaverville, Buncombe county, in 1922; with a note explaining the patrol system by which slaves, if off their plantations after dark without a permit, were whipped and returned to their masters.
Run, Johnny, run, a pater-roller'll catch you,
Run, Johnny, run, you'd better get away.
As I jumped over in the harvest field
A black snake struck me on my heel.
I run myself so nigh to death
I stuck my head in a hornet's nest.
Run, Johnny, run, a pater-roller'll catch you,
Run, Johnny, run, you'd better get away.
'Run, Johnny, Run.' From Clara Hearne of Pittsboro, Chatham county, in 1923. The same as E except that the refrain ends "it's almost day" and is inserted between the first and second halves of the stanza, which has "caught" for "struck" and the second half runs
Run, Johnny, run, I run my best,
Run my head in a hornet's nest.
'Run, Johnny, Run, or Paderole'll Ketch You.' 0btained from Walter J. Miller, student at Trinity College, in 1919, who learned it from his father and said it was "a favorite slave song." With tiie tune, obtained from H. B. Harrison. Only the refrain line and the line "Stuck his head in a hornet's nest."
No title. From Minnie Rryan Warrior, Duplin county. The refrain only, ending "You better he a-runnin'."
"Pateroller Song" from Talley 1922:
457 Run, *Johnny, Run
Run, Johnny, run! De *Patter-rollers'll ketch you.
Run, Johnny, run! It's almos' day.
Johnny run'd, Johnny flew,
Johnny tore his shu't in two.
All over dem woods and frou de paster,
Dem Patter-rollers shot; but Johnny git faster,
Oh, Johnny whirl'd, Johnny wheel'd,
Johnny tore up de whole co'n field.
*Patrollers, or white guards; on duty at night during the days of slavery; whose duty it was to see that slaves without permission to go, stayed at home.
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