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The Drunkard's Song/Jack O’ Diamonds/Way Up on Clinch Mountain
Old-Time, Texas Style; Breakdown. USA; Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia. SEE ALSO: “Rye Whiskey” "Drunken Hiccups," "The Cuckoo," "Way Up On Clinch Mountain."
ARTIST: From East Tennessee; mountain whites; from memory; 1905
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes.
DATE: 1905 First documented in early 1890's.
RECORDING INFO: (Appearing as Drunken Hiccups/Rye Whiskey also) Barnett, Dick; and Bill Long. More Fiddle Jam Sessions, Voyager VRLP 304, LP (197?), cut# 7. Blue Sky Boys. Presenting The Blue Sky Boys, JEMF 104, LP (1965), cut# 8. Carpenter, Ernie. Elk River Blues, Augusta Heritage AHR 003, LP (1986), cut# 16. Chapman, Owen "Snake". Up in Chapman's Hollow, Rounder 0378, CD (1996), cut# 9. Chapman, Owen "Snake". Devil's Box, Devil's Box DB, Ser (196?), 28/2, p29a. Cockerham, Jarrell and Jenkins. Back Home in the Blue Ridge, County 723, LP, cut# 5. Fox, Curly. Champion Fiddler, Vol. 2, Rural Rhythm RR 252, LP (196?), cut# 13. Jarrell, Tommy. Union Grove 50. Old Time Fiddlers Convention, Union Grove SS-9, LP (1974), cut#A.06 (Jack O' Diamonds). Leftwich, Brad; and Linda Higginbotham. No One to Bring Home Tonight, County 790, LP (1984), cut# 7a. McBee, Hamper. Raw Mash, Rounder 0061, LP (1978), cut# 12. Thomasson, Benny & Jerry. Weiser Reunion, Voyager VRCS 309, Cas (1993), cut# 14. Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, "If the River Was Whiskey" (with verses from this song though a version of Hesitaion Blues); Columbia 15545-D, 1930; on CPoole02) Jules Allen, "Jack O' Diamonds" (Victor 21470, 1928) Hobart Smith, "Drunken Hiccups" (on LomaxCD1706); Bill Nicholson w. Zane Shrader, "Jack of Diamonds" (AFS; on LC14). Jilson Setters [pseud. for James W. "Blind Bill" Day], "Way Up On Clinch Mountain" (Victor 21635, 1928; on RoughWays1). New Lost City Ramblers, "Drunkard's Hiccups" (on NLCR08) Augusta Heritage Records 003, Ernie Carpenter - "Elk River Blues: Traditional Tunes From Braxton County, W.Va." County 724, Benny Thomasson- "Country Fiddling." Missouri State Old Time Fiddlers Association 002, Taylor McBaine - "Boone County Fiddler." Rural Records RRCF 251, Curly Fox (1970). Voyager 301, Dwayne Youngblood- "Fiddle Jam Session." Voyager 309, Benny and Jerry Thomasson- "The Weiser Reunion: A Jam Session" (1993). Voyager 319-S, Ace Sewell- "Southwest Fiddlin.'"
OTHER NAMES: “Drunken Hiccups/Hiccoughs;” “Rye Whiskey;” "Way Up On Clinch Mountain," "Clinch Mountain;" "Fort Worth," "Robi Donadh Gorrach," "Johnnie Armstrong," "Todlen Hame," "Bacach," "Hell on the Wabash."
RELATED TO: "Mason's Apron," "The Cuckoo" (floating lyrics, "The Wagoner's Lad" (floating lyrics), "Greenback Dollar" "Sailing Out on the Ocean" (floating lyrics) and "Wake Up Susan"
SOURCES: [Brody, Phillips]; Cyril Stinnett (Mo.) [Phillips]. West Virginia fiddler Ernie Carpenter learned his version from Wallace Pritchard. Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; pg. 142. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), 1994; pg. 120. Thede (The Fiddle Book), 1967; pg. 51. Frank McCraw (Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma) [Thede]: Benny Thomasson (Texas) McGraw, Frank. Fiddle Book, Oak, Bk (1967), p 51b (Jack O' Diamonds) Sandburg, p. 307, "Way Up On Clinch Mountain" (2 text, 1 tune, but only the "A" text belongs here).Lomax-FSUSA 64, "Rye Whiskey" (1 text, 1 tune) Rorrer, p. 92, "If the River Was Whiskey" (1 text, built around W. C. Handy's "Hesitating Blues" but with most of the verses from this song) Darling-NAS, pp. 286-287, "Jack o' Diamonds" (1 text, heavily mixed with "Logan County Jail"); pp. 287-288, "Rye Whiskey" (1 text) Randolph 405, "Rye Whiskey, Rye Whiskey" (6 texts, 1 tune); also 494, "Tie-Hackin's Too Tiresome" (1 text, 1 tune, an extract from a longer version) MWheeler, pp. 112-113, "Beefsteak When I'm Hongry" (1 text, 1 tune, a mixed fragment I file here on the basis of the first verse; the others are from elsewhere) Saffel-CowboyP, pp. 211-213, "Jack o' Diamonds" (1 text; this particular Lomax offering contains elements of "Jack o Diamonds/Rye Whisky," "The Wagoner's Lad," The Rebel Soldier," and others) Chase, pp. 142-143, "Clinch Mountain" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: Way Up On Clinch Mountain is version of "Drunken Hiccups" AKA "Rye Whiskey" or "Jack O' Diamonds." Recorded in 1928 for Victor in New York City by Jilson Setters (under the name J. W. Day/Blind Bill Day), b. 1860, Rowan County, Ky.
Day's Lyrics:
I tune up my fiddle, I rosen my bow
I make myself welcome whereever I go
Hiccup oh lordy...
Recorded on February 27, 1928 in New York City. J. W. Day "Blind Bill Day" was the real name of a fiddler who later performed as Jilson Setters. Jilson Setters, the character, was held out to the public by a folk festival organizer as a modern day Rip Van Winkle. Setters purportedly spent his life in the mountains never to come into contact with the modern world, still retaining vestiges of his English ancestry , not to mention original British ballads. The story was that Setters had recently regained his eyesight and was suffering from culture shock as a result of his exposure to modernity. It was all nonsense, except that he had indeed regained his eyesight through an operation....over twenty years before the creation of the Setters persona. Nevertheless, the public bought the story to such an extent that he even met the King and Queen of England. This tune is a fiddle tune that is also known as "Drunken Hiccups" and has been traced to even older variations in the British Isles.
The song was in the repertoire of Red River KY native fiddler Lily May Ledford from her father Daw White Ledford as "Hiccup Oh Lordy."
The song was also recorded by fiddler Marcus Martin under the title, "Way Up on Clinch Mountain." Martin was recorded by Peter Hoover in the late fifties and early sixties near Swannanoa, North Carolina, who documented the seminal fiddling of Marcus Martin. Recorded first by field workers from the Library of Congress in the thirties, Marcus combined in his repertoire the archaic tunes he learned from Manco Sneed with jazzy numbers from then-contemporary recordings of Arthur Smith. A primary source for many of the crosstuned fiddle tunes that were such a novelty to the folk revival, his recordings remain a singular insight into Appalachian fiddling.
NOTES Jack O' Diamonds: A Major. Standard or AEAC#. AABB (Brody, Thede): AABCDD (Phillips). The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954.
The song, “Jack O' Diamonds” is an American branch of an old and large family of songs originating in the British Isles as “The Cuckoo.” The Cuckoo ballad relates to the Irish ballad- Bunclody (Streams of Bunclody/ Maid of Bunclody/ Bunclody). These are some names from the Cuckoo branch: "Cuckoo Bird;" "Coo Coo;” "Coo Coo Bird;" "A-Walking and A-Talking," "The Unconstant Lover” (Frank Brown); "The Fourth Day of July" “Dove;” “Pretty Girl Is Like a Little Bird;” “Variations on the Coocoo;” “I'm Sad and I'm Lonesome/Lonely;” “Wobble Bird.”
“The Bonny Cuckoo” (An chuaichin mhaiseach), an Irish air in3/4 or 6/8 time, appears to be the original source for the “Bunclody” songs and another direct line to the “Cuckoo” songs found in Ireland, Scotland and England which were brought to the US in the late 1700’s.
Both the “Jack O' Diamonds” and “Rye Whiskey" are well-known in America and as the fiddle tune "Drunken Hiccups." The songs are a composite of "The Wagoner's Lad", which itself has offshoots such as "I'm a Rambler, I'm a Gambler.”
The “Jack O' Diamonds” is also a 1926 blues title by Blind Lemon Jefferson and the line “Jack o' diamonds is hard,” appears in Big Joe Williams’ “Baby Please Don’t Go.” The reference to the “Jack O’ Diamonds” is that it’s a bad (unlucky) card to hold:
Jack of diamonds, jack of diamonds
I’ve known you from old
You’ve robbed my poor pockets
Of silver and gold
Other versions such as the “Rebel Soldier/ Old Soldier” appeared. By the time of the publication of John H. Cox's 'Folk-Songs of the South' Harvard University Press in 1925, the focus had shifted to war:
The Union men and Yankees have forced me from my home
I am a rebel soldier and far from my home
I'll eat when I'm hungry, I'll drink when I'm dry
If those Yankees don't kill me, I'll fight till I die
In the last 50 years (Randolph in 1954) and especially the last several decades, “Jack O' Diamonds” has been somewhat separated from “Rye Whiskey" although the titles are still interchanged. To be entitled, “Jack O' Diamonds,” the Jack O’Diamonds verse usually appears first or second.
Here are the lyrics:
THE DRUNKARD'S SONG/Jack o' Diamonds
SONGS AND RHYMES FROM THE SOUTH BY E. C. PERROW.
VI. SONGS CONNECTED WITH DRINKING AND GAMBLING.*
I. THE DRUNKARD'S SONG.
A.
(From East Tennessee; mountain whites; from memory; 1905.)
Way up on Clinch Mountain,
I wander alone;
I'm es drunk es the devil;
Oh, let me alone!
Tink-a-link-tink, tink-a-link-tink,
Tink-a-link-tink-a-link!
Tink-a-link-tink, tink-a-link-tink,
Tink-a-link-tink-a-link!
I'll play cards and drink whiskey
Wherever I'm gone;
En if people don' like me,
They ken let me alone.
I'll eat when I'm hungry
En drink when I'm dry;
En ef whiskey don't kill me,
I'll live till I die.**
O Lulu, O Lulu, O Lulu, my dear!
O Lulu, my dear!
I'd give this whole world
Ef my Lulu wuz hyeur.
Way up on Clinch Mountain
Where the wild geese fly high,
I'll think uv little Allie
En lay down en die.
Jack u' diamonds, Jack u' diamonds,
I know you uv ole;
You rob my pore pockets
Uv silver en gol'.
You may boast uv yore knowledge
En brag uv yore sense;
But 'twill all be furgotten
One hundred years hence.
B.
(From Mississippi; country whites; MS. of Dr. Herrington; 1909.)
Oh brandy and whiskey I wish you no harm,
But I wish I had a jug full as long as my arm.
*Continued from vol. xxvi of this Journal (1913), p. 173.
**Compare Berea Quarterly, October, 1910, p. 26.
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