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American Ballads and Folk Songs |
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Chorus:
Run long home, Miss Hog-eye,
Singin' high-stepper, Lord, you shall be free.
God made bees, bees made honeyj
God made man, man made money.
God made a nigger, made him in the night,
Made him in a hurry and forgot to paint him white.
Chorus:
Po? mo'nahs! You shall be free, When the good Lord sets you free. |
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OLD DAN TUCKER
Martha McCulloch-Williams writes to the editor of the New York Sun:
"Here is a true and proper, if fragmentary, version of the ballad as chanted from my earliest youth, and derived, as is most immortal poesy, from North Carolina. Thence too comes the spurious initial stanza of the folk lore people:
"Ole Aunt Dinah she got drunk, Felled in de fire and kicked up a chunk. Red hot coal popped in her shoe— Lordy a-mighty! How de water flew?
"Ole Dan Tucker was adjustable—you began singing it where you chose and could play both ends against the middle, or sing it backward, or forward, or improvise topical stanzas according to your mind and skill. It was a fine dancing tune, and the black fiddlers often sang it as they fiddled, the prompter meanwhile racking his wits to find new figures yet keep the proper rhythms.
"Let me say further the singing was commonly in negro dialect, but
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