French's attempt to use black vernacular (a kind of pseudo-gullah) _is_ unintentionally funny, particularly from today's post-PC viewpoint.

Linguistically however, it is interesting to see in his "sight spelling" exactly how a middle class Hibernian English speaker heard this accent, or perhaps imagined it.

Ironically, "sight spelling" only works when the writer and performer share exactly the same accent, so no American (of any color) or English person can ever perform this tune as intended!

Wrinkles