| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
200 |
NEGRO FOLK-SONGS |
||
|
as quick at repartee as at hopping, and the bedbug from that same volume, not so gifted as the June bug and the lightning bug — but arriving at his objective "jes' de same." There is the "grass-mo whopper settin' on a sweet potato vine" in the same Porch milieu, picked from his attractive setting by "Mr. Turkey Gobble-wobble,'' who came walking up behind him in an unsportsmanlike manner. Since the music was not given in the former volume, I will add it here. A different form of it appears in a spiritual sent by Lucy Dickinson Urquhart, of Lynchburg, Virginia.
Zaccheus Climbed the Sycamo' Tree
Zaccheus climbed the sycamo' tree,
Few days, few days! Zaccheus climbed the sycamo' tree,
Few days, get along home. Oh, he's way up yondeh — oh, he's way up yondeh, Oh, he's way up yondeh in dat sycamo' tree.
Zaccheus climbed his Lord fo' to see,
Few days, few days! Zaccheus climbed his Lord fo' to see,
Few days, get along home. Oh, he's way up yondeh — oh, he's way up yondeh, Oh, he's way up yondeh, in dat sycamo' tree!
Mrs. Urquhart says: "The following stanza may have been improvised by some less reverent mind. But that only goes to show that it is a real folk-song, in that it is a composite production."
Grasshopper settin' on a sweet 'tater vine,
Few days, few days! Shangai rooster crope up behine,
Few days, git along home. Oh, he's way up yondeh — oh, he's way up yondeh, Oh, he's way up yondeh, in dat syc'mo' tree!
Then there was the "po' inch-worm" in the spiritual Keep A-Inchin' Along, and the "inchin' wurum" that cut down the "go'd vine" which had grown up to shade the luckless Jonah from the sun, in the chant from South Carolina.
Mississippi Negroes sing nonsensically,
Shoo fly, don't you bodder me, Shoo fly, don't you bodder me, |
|||