ON THE TRAIL OF NEGRO FOLK-SONGS
A Collection Of Negro Traditional & Folk Songs with Sheet Music Lyrics & Commentaries - online book
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NEGRO FOLK-SONGS |
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The Negro has a special tact in dealing with animals, and can get more sympathetic response from them than can a white person, as a rule. The voice of an old fellow urging on the race horse he has tended can speed him to victory better than another. This immemorial fellowship with what we call the lower creatures is a part of the Negro's being and sings itself in his folk-songs. Folk-songs are dateless and can be placed with respect to time only as they celebrate certain events or changing conditions of society, but many of the songs known to belong to slavery times are about animals. For example, in " Slave Songs of the United States," published in 1867, we find the following, which was even then so old that it had no tradition of authorship. It seems really a combination of fragments from various Negro folk-songs of early origin. |
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CHARLESTON GALS |
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As I walked down the new-cut road, I met the tap and then the toad. The toad commenced to whistle and sing, And the possum cut the pigeon's wing. |
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