The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #34865   Message #1867849
Posted By: Jim Dixon
24-Oct-06 - 11:25 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Johnson's Old Gray Mule / ... Grey Mule
Subject: Lyr Add: JOHNSON'S OLD GREY MULE
I listened to the Honking Duck file. Here are my corrections to Ritchie's transcription above. Some of these are very uncertain.

JOHNSON'S OLD GREY MULE
Georgia Yellow Hammers

1. Johnson had an old gray mule. His name was Simon Slick.
He'd wall his eyes and switch his tail. Hm! How that mule could kick!
Well, he rode him down to the foot of the hill. He hooked him to his cart.
He loved that mule and the mule loved him with all his muley heart. [CHORUS]

2. Johnson just hooked him up to try him out one day.
He kicked, he brawed, and bit all night and the chickens flew for days.
He'd wink one eye. He'd switch his tail. He'd greet you with a smile.
He telegraphed with that left hind leg. He'd send you half a mile. [CHORUS]

3. Johnson fed him on a rotten stump and lumps of yellow clay.
He fed him on some wooden pegs; that were his oats and hay.
That mule would chaw, revolve (?) his jaw, a pair o' old dirty socks.
He'd wink his eye like he had some pie, with his mouth as full of rocks. [CHORUS]

4. That mule chewed some old bed quilts, also a wooden stool.
Johnson he concluded then that old mule were a fool.
Johnson thought that old mule had crashed through (yon back row?)
You'd better bet that Johnson let that old gray mule alone. [CHORUS]

[I've never heard the expression "wall his eyes" but I assume it's related to the term "wall-eyed," and would therefore mean his eyes looked in opposite directions, the opposite of being cross-eyed.

["Brawed" I assume is a dialectical pronunciation of "brayed."]