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Rabbit in a Pea Patch
Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Arkansas, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee.
ARTIST: from Uncle Dave Macon Vo 5156.
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: Minstrel Origin: Referenced in "The Publishers Weekly" -1884. Recorded first by Uncle Dave Macon in 1927 for Vocalion.
RECORDING INFO: Chapman, Owen "Snake". Walnut Gap, Rounder 0418, CD (1999), trk# 17
Smith, Paul. Devil Eat the Groundhog, Rounder 0409, CD (1999), trk# 14
West Maryland Highballers. West Maryland Highballers, Biograph RC 6001, LP (1963), trk# B.06 (Rabbit in the Pea Patch); 1928 Pickard Family; Vernon Dalhart 1931
Melvin Wine; Kuntz (Ragged but Right), 1987; pg. 350. County 521, Uncle Dave Macon and the Fruit Jar Drinkers - "Original Recordings 1925- 1935." Flying Fish 055, The Red Clay Ramblers- "Merchant's Lunch" (1977). Supertone (Brunswick) 2071 {78 RPM}, the Pickard Family.
OTHER NAMES/RELATED TO: "Carve Dat Possum," "Bile Them Cabbage Down."
SOURCES: Thede; Ceolas; Folk Index;
NOTES: D Major. Standard. AABBCC. According to Kuntz this song was "composed by Uncle Dave Macon," who first recorded it in 1927 for Vocalion. The song is from the mistrel era and can be traced to 1884 as a fiddle tune: "to the violin's monotonous iteration of The Chicken in the Bread- Trough, or The Rabbit in the Pea-Patch" [Publisher Weekly].
The tune appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954, and is in the repertoire of southwestern Missouri Ozarks fiddler Bob Holt (b. 1930), learned from local sources. It was recorded for the Library of Congress by Herbert Halpert in 1939 from the playing of Tishomingo County, Mississippi, fiddler W.E. Claunch. [U.S. Library of Congress. Division of music. Archive of American folk song, Archive of Folk Song (U.S.), United States. Work Projects Administration (Washington, D.C.) - Juvenile Nonfiction - 1942 RABBIT IN THE PEA PATCH. Played by WE Claunch on fiddle and Mrs. Christeen Haygood on guitar. Near Guntown, Miss., Herbert Halpert, 1939]
"Rabbit in Pea Patch" is a standard tune in a square dance fiddler's repertoire, asserts A.B. Moore in his History of Alabama, 1934, and lending credence to this its being recorded in the Clarke County Democrat of May 6, 1926, as a definitive old-time piece played for a contest in Jackson, Clark County, Alabama.
"Rabbit in Pea Patch" is an African-American folk tale and a different version of the tale is found in the 1883 book "Uncle Remus" featuring Brer Rabbit. A version from Georgia appears in the JOAFL, 1913. It begins: "ONCE upon a time a rabbit went to a man pea-patch and eat most all of the pea. And the man told his girl to catch him if he come in there again." See Version 3 for an African American song using the title lyric.
The song is referenced in "The Heart of Old Hickory and Other Stories of Tennessee: And Other Stories (Page 64)" by Will Allen Dromgoole - 1895 - 208 pages. "I tetched the bow acrost the strings, Rabbit in the Pea-Patch,' — the boys began ter pat... How the boots did strike that ole puncheon floor ! Jube led."
It's referenced in "The Publishers Weekly" - Page 631 by R.R. Bowker Company, Publishers' Board of Trade (U.S.), Book Trade Association of Philadelphia, Am. Book Trade Association, American Book Trade Union - Language Arts & Disciplines - 1884
"The Dancin' Party at Harrison's Cove" from Craddock's "in the Tennessee Mountains"
"to the violin's monotonous iteration of The Chicken in the Bread- Trough, or
The Rabbit in the Pea-Patch— all their grave faces as grave as ever.
"RABBIT IN A PEA PATCH" from African American source:
Rabbit in the pea-patch, shoo-lye-love (sing sentence 5x)
Shoo-lye love, my darling
You love Miss Sally (substitute another name;5x)
Shoo-lye-love, my darling
You stole my partner, shoo-lye love (5x)
Shoo-lye-love, my darling
But I'll get another one, shoo-lye-love (5x)
Shoo-lye-love, my darling
Pretty as the other one, shoo-lye-love (5x)
Shoo-lye-love, my darling
“Rabbit in the Pea-Patch” is one of a number of rabbit songs that used to be well known among African Americans, particularly those from the Southern part of the Untied States. Few urban African Americans, from the South or the North, know these rabbit songs anymore. This song is included in the 1978 recording and cover notes to”Old Mother Hippletoe, Rural and Urban Children’s Songs (New World Records, Recorded Anthology of American Music)
A “pea patch” is a small garden where peas are grown. This song doesn’t tell any story. It is actually just an excuse for dancing. Another name for couple dance songs such as these is “play party” songs. Some African American and Anglo-American religious groups that were opposed to couples dancing permitted couples to hop and skip around to songs such as this one, because they could consider it a game instead of a dance. According to Kate Rinzer, author of the Old Mother Hippletoe record’s notes, this song was sung in unison by people who were watching the game being played. Boy and girl couples performed this “play party game” by skipping hand in hand around a lone boy. The boy would eventually “steal” a girl of his choice from one of the couples. The person who is now alone becomes the new “rabbit in the pea-patch”.
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