| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
Brewster: Ballads and Songs of Indiana 335
84 SIMON SLICK
For other texts, see Odum and Johnson, The Negro and His Songs, p. 238; Talley, Negro Folk Rhymes . . , p. 47; and White, American Negro Folk Songs, pp. 227-28.
Professor White writes me1 regarding Indiana B: ". . . your interesting version of 'Simon Slick* ... is one of the most complete I have seen. ... I have always regarded it as probably a descendant from old minstrel or vaudeville days or perhaps an independent composition for white com-shuckings or other gatherings. The form and diction both make a Negro origin seem decidedly doubtful."
A
Contributed by Miss Sylvia Vaughan, of Oakland City, Indiana. Gibson County. Obtained from her father, Mr. Hiram Vaughan, who does not remember where he learned it, but says that he has known it since he was a boy. March 19, 1935.
1. There was a man in our town,
His name was Simon Slick; He had a mule with dreamy eyes, And how that mule could kick!
Chorus
Whoa, mule, whoa! whoa, mule, whoa! Every time a nigger looks 'round It's whoa, mule, whoa!
2. He'd shut one eye and shake his tail
And greet you with a smile; He'd send a telegraph with his leg And kick you half a mile.
3. He kicked the feathers off a goose,
He pulverized a hog, Dissected seven Chinamen, And killed a yaller dog. |
||
|
1 In a letter of January 28, 19S5. |
||