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NEGRO FOLK-SONGS |
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Ole Massa and Mistis ridin* in a hack, That's what gives a Nigger the pain in the back! With a whoo-jamboree, a-whoo-whoo; A whoo-jamboree, a-whoo-whoo!
The Negro is not limited to the birds which poets usually lyricize, — the lark, the nightingale, the mocking-bird, — but he knows some the classic poets never heard of. He is bound by no traditions, but sings what pleases him. He is liberated from conventional concepts, first because he is born free of nature, and then because he makes his song for his own pleasure, not to please some crabbed editor shut up in a dark cell in Manhattan. He is not even interested in his audience, for he sings to himself in the field, and if the cotton rows or the rail fence dislike his metre, at least they say nothing about it. The Negro can see the dramatic values and the character interest in a bird not usually regarded with affection, as in the "Hawkie" reported by Wirt Williams from Mississippi.
Hawkie Is a Schemes' Bird
Hawkie is a schemin' bird, He schemes all round the sky; He schemes into my chicken house And makes my chickens fly.
Chorus
Git along down town,
Git along down town,
Git along down to Vickburg town
For to lay my 'baccer down.
Went up on de mountain To give my horn a blow; Thought I heard my sweetheart say, "Yonder comes my beau."
Chorus Climbed up on a mountain To cut me a load of cane, To make me a barrel o' sorghum For to sweeten Liza Jane.
Chorus Got a train in Cairo Sixteen coaches long; All I want dat train to do Is to fotch my gal along.
Chorus |
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