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Stack Em Up in Piles/ The War Song
Old-Time and Bluegrass Breakdown;
ARTIST: Melvine Wine/Collected as The War Song in Cox's "Folk Songs of the South"
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: 1918 Cox
RECORDING INFO: Augusta Heritage Records AHR 014, Melvin Wine – “Folk Music and Lore of the Civil War.” Jimmy Tripplet – “Helena’s Green are the Woods” (learned from Melvin Wine). Jack Krack & Doug Van Gundy – “Two Far"
RELATED TO: War Song;
OTHER NAMES: War Song
SOURCES: Kuntz; Cox's "Folk Songs of the South"
NOTES: From the playing of West Virginia fiddler Melvin Wine (b. 1909), who supposedly fashioned the tune from a Revolutionary War song. West Virginia musician and academic Gerry Milnes believes that it is connected with the Civil War and not an earlier conflict. Wine sings only this chorus:
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We run 'em nine miles and we stacked 'em up in piles,
Besides what got drownded in the river.
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One verse only for the song, collected in West Virginia, appears in Cox’s Folk Songs of the South where it is listed as "The War Song". Laws, in Native American Balladry, only mentions Cox's collected version, from which Milnes deduces it is a rare piece, given the thoroughness with which Laws investigated.
The War Song- From Cox
Contributed by A. C. Payne; Barclay, McDowell County August 1918
Payne played the fiddle and sang the song while riding a horse in an election day parade in Kentucky.
Down in Bowling Green such a sight was never seen,
The earth all stood in a quiver;
We run 'em twelve miles, and the Devil's laid in piles,
Besides what we drowned in the river.
CHORUS: Fol de rol de day, fol de rol de day,
The Black Horse Calvary a-coming;
You needn't mind the weather, we'll get damned together,
And spree around the happy land of Caanan.
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