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Take Me Home, Poor Julia
See Also: The related melodies/songs: On The Banks of the Old Tennessee/ Free Little Bird/ Kitty Kline
Old-Time Song; Southeast USA
ARTIST: Uncle Dave Macon; 1927 recording for Vocalion
Listen: Take Me Home Poor Julia
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: 1800’s; First recorded in 1927
RECORDING INFO: Take Me Home, Poor Julia
Uncle Dave Macon; 1927 recording for Vocalion
OTHER NAMES:
Related to: Kitty Kline; "Free Little Bird" “Banks of the Old Tennessee,”
SOURCES: Mudcat;
NOTES: Meade includes "Take Me Home, Poor Julia" in his section titled 'Black Face Minstrel Pieces'. He gives no info or citations except to 2 books which contain related pieces: Lydia Parrish 'Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands' Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Associates Inc 1965 pp122-23 and H.M. Belden and Arthur Palmer Hudson, Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, III, #421, 506-7. The sole recorded reference is to Uncle Dave's 1927 recording for Vocalion.
The Parrish reference above is to the following:
WAY DOWN ON THE OLD PEEDEE
Cho: Way down on the old Peedee,
Way down on the old Peedee,
Summer night the moon shine bright,
Sally you can see.
I wish that gal was mine
I wish that gal was mine
Summer night the moon shine bright,
Sally you can see.
Cho
Goodbye, my honey, I'm gone
Goodbye, my honey, I'm gone
If you call me honey spen' my money,
Goodbye, my honey, I'm gone.
The Brown reference (some commentary quoted too) follows. His final example is closer in mood to "Old Uncle Ned," and it reads more like genteel white in origin, but it is interesting anyway.
WAY DOWN ON THE OLD PEEDEE
"Songs about the Peedee appeared early in blackface minstrelsy. Christy's Nigga Songster (New York, n.d., pp. 164-5) has one with a chorus ending"
Way down in the counteree,
Four or five miles from de ole Pee Dee.
"Gumbo Chaff's The Ethiopian Glee Book (Boston, 1849, p. 154) includes another of which the following is a sample:
In Souf Carolina I was born,
I husk de wood an chop de corn,
De roastin ear to de house I bring,
De nigger cotch me an I sing:
Cho: Ring de hoop! Blow de horn!
Cotch de nigger a stealin corn,
Way down in the low groun fiel,
Three-four mile from Pompey's heel.
...
"From Mr. K. P. Lewis, Durham [NC] c. 1915, as set down from the recitation or singing of Dr. Kemp P. Battle, Chapel Hill, in November 1910
Way down on de ole Peedee
Way down on de ole Peedee
I'll take my boat and way I will float
Way down on de ole Peedee.
"... Contributed by Miss Jewell Robbins of Pekin, Montgomery County ... 1922. ...
OLD DARKEY JOE
Away down south, on the old Peedee,
Away down in the cotton and the corn,
There lived old Joe, and he lived so long
That nobody knows when he was born.
Cho No use now to weep for darkey Joe,
Sleeping by the tall green corn,
It doesn't matter now for old darkey Joe,
Nobody knows where he was born.
The wind blows soft on the old Peedee,
Away down in the cotton and the corn,
Sighing now for old darkey Joe,
But nobody knows where he was born.
There's an old gray stone on the old Peedee,
Away down in the cotton and the corn,
Tell us all when old Joe died,
But nobody knows when he was born.
Macon's song chorus is clearly related to Free Little Bird:
FREE LITTLE BIRD- Roscoe Holcomb
Take me home, little birdie, take me home
Take me home, little birdie, take me home
Take me home, little birdie, ‘cause I don’t love nobody
Take me home, little birdie, take me home
The song "Take Me Home, Poor Julia" is also related to: "On the Banks of the Old Tennessee":
VERSION 1 "On the Banks of the Old Tennessee": Related to Kitty Kline; Free Little Bird which originated from mid-1800s parlar song Kity Clyde. These versions including J.W. "Peg" Hatcher's sing about being a bird, then he would fly to his love; if a fish, he would take her hook. But now she is dead and buried, and he is no longer willing to stay "on the banks of the old Tennessee."
Allen Brothers, "Free Little Bird":
Now if I was a little fish
I would never swim in the sea
I would swim in the brook where poor Katie hung her hook
On the banks of the old Tennessee
VERSION 2 "On the Banks of the Old Tennessee": The VERSE is: My mother/father brother is dead and gone
My mother's dead and gone
She's buried beneath that weeping willow tree
On the banks of old Tennessee
CHORUS: On the banks of old Tennessee,
On the banks of old Tennessee
It's heaven alone where the moonlight is shone
On the banks of old Tennessee
"Take Me Home, Poor Julia" has a sinilar melody to Katy kline/Kitty Kline and Free Little Bird.
TAKE ME HOME POOR JULIA- Uncle Dave Macon
Way down on the Peedee
Among the cotton and cane
Oh the cabins I could make
And the buildings I could build
On the banks of the Peedee.
Take me home, poor Julia, take me home
Take me home, poor Julia, take me home
For I have no place for to lay my head
But to lay in poor Julia's arms
One morning when I was a-walking
Oh the sun was just a half an hour high
I travelled through the green grass grow up to my knees
Miss Julia hung her head and she cried
Take me home, poor Julia, take me home
Take me home, poor Julia, take me home
For I have no place for to lay my head
But to lay in poor Julia's arms
Miss Julia and I were sleeping
When death came a-knocking at the door
Miss Julia was a-sleeping by my side
On the banks of the Ohio
Take me home, poor Julia, take me home
Take me home, poor Julia, take me home
For I have no place for to lay my head
But to lay in poor Julia's arms
You may bury me in my coffin
Don't bury so deeply in my grave
Don't make no difference where you bury my body
Gonna rise at the resurrection day
Take me home, poor Julia, take me home
Take me home, poor Julia, take me home
For I have no place for to lay my head
But to lay in poor Julia's arms.
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