| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
SONGS ABOUT ANIMALS |
201 |
||
|
Shoo fly, don't you bodder me, For I belongs to Company G.
I am told that this was originally a minstrel song.
In my childhood I have heard Texas Negroes sing a stanza based
on the slang phrase "no flies on," meaning nothing to complain of in
a person. I recall being shocked at their license, but I think they did
not mean to be irreverent-There 's flies on me, There's flies on you, But there ain't no flies on Jesus.
A typical Southern picture of the old-time plantation, where the kitchen was in a building separate from the "big house," is given in a stanza contributed by Isabel Walker, of Richmond, Virginia. This was a favorite song of an old Negro, Laurence Newbill, now dead, who had been a family slave.
Milk and de veal Six weeks old, Mice and skippers Gettin' mighty bold! Long-tailed mouse Wid a pail of souse, Skippin' frum de kitchen, To de white folks' house!
This is a variant of a stanza of Keemo Kimo, a banjo song found in George Christy and Wood's "New Song Book," 1864.
The blue-tailed fly is an insect that figures in folk-song, as the folÂlowing, given by Mary Burnley Gwathmey, of Tidewater district, Virginia, attests:
De Blue-tail Fly
When I was young I used to wait On Massa an' hand him de plate, An' pass de bottle when he git dry An' bresh away de blue-tail fly.
Chorus
Jim crack corn, I don't care, Jim crack corn, I don't care, Jim crack corn, I don't care, Ole Massa's gone away. |
|||