The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #13537   Message #112307
Posted By: Art Thieme
07-Sep-99 - 09:53 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite?
Subject: RE: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite?
Kat, I mailed the cass to you this afternoon...

How about:

Papa loved mama,
Mama loved men,
Mama's in the grave yard,
And papa's in ther pen.

Six little kids,
Hangin' 'round the door,
Most of 'em look like,
Cotton eyed Joe.

Where do you came from...

(I forgot to include these lyrics that I often put into the song. I used the "Mama loved papa" verse long before Garth Brooks did his song with that in it and sold a million of 'em. [him, not me] I got it from a biography of Carl Sandburg that stated that Mr. Sandberg thought that single verse was the "shortest ballad ever written". I often put it into every light-hearted song in a given set just to have fun with it and to show how zipper verses would almost fit anywhere---as long as it fit the tempo of the particular song. When Garth made a hit of it, I quit doing that pretty much 'cause folks were confused and didn't get the point--or they got the wrong point.)

Art