Tee Roo- Grant (TX) 1934 Lomax
"A lot of times it was sung by the farmers to sheer their wives up a little bit when they'd been quarrelin' and raisin' sand around, to make 'em afraid the same thing might happen to them. You know them old religious women, they're awful afraid of the devil. Yes, they's plenty of them believe that the devil come and called on the old man one mornin' when he was startin' out to plow and sacked her up and took her away and the farmer wouldn't accept her at all when he brought her back." —Aunt Molly Jackson.
TEE ROO- From Our Singing Country, Lomax. Collected from Foy and Ado Grant, TX 1934
Got up one morning, went out to plow,
Tee roo, tee roo, went out to plow,
With sixteen oxens and a darned old cow,
Tee roo, tee roo, and a darned old cow.
Up stepped the old devil sayin', "How do you do?
There's one in your family that I must have."
"Oh, please don't take my oldest son,
There's work on the place that's got to be done."
"It's all I want's that wife of yours." (2x)
"Well, you can have her with all of my heart,
And promise me you'll never depart."
He picked her up upon his back,
He looked like an eagle skeered off of the rack.
He carried her on about half of the road,
He says, '"Old woman, you're a devil of a load."
He carried her forty long miles or more
He carried her on to the old devil's door,
There stood a little devil with a ball and a chain,
And up with her foot and she kicked out his brains.
Nine little devils went climbing the wall,
Saying, "Take her back, daddy, she'll murder us all."
Got up the next morning, peeped through the crack,
I spied the old devil come wagging her back.
And now you know what a woman can do,
She can whup out the devil and her husband too.