Good grief--EVERYONE plays this tune. I've got so many versions of it just in the recordings I own, I can't even believe it. Actually, the Bob Wills one I have is pretty nice--not as rip-roaring fast as the old-time ones and has a nice a melodic variation.

Don't you remember, don't you know?
Daddy worked a man called Cotton-Eyed Joe,
Daddy worked a man called Cotton-Eyed Joe.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
Had not a-been for Cotton-Eyed Joe,
I'd 'a' been married a long time ago,
I'd 'a' been married a long time ago.

Down in the cotton-patch, down below,
Everybody's singing the Cotton-Eyed Joe,
Everybody's singing the Cotton-Eyed Joe.

I know a gal lives down below,
I used to go to see her but I don't no more,
I used to go to see her but I don't no more.

Tune my fiddle and I rosin my bow,
Gonna make music everywhere I go,
Gonna play a tune they call "Cotton-Eyed Joe".


And the Freight Hoppers recorded a fast version with the verses, most of which are floating:

Well, run to the window, run to the door,
And I ain't seen nothing but the Cotton-Eyed Joe,
I ain't seen nothing but the Cotton-Eyed Joe.

Chorus:
Where'd you come from, where'd you go?
Where'd you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe.

Sitting in the window singing to my love,
. . .like a bell from the window up above,
Mule ate a grasshopper eating ice cream,
Mule got sick so they laid him on a beam.

Well, down in the henhouse on my knees,
I thought I heard a chicken sneeze,
He sneezed so loud with a whoop and cough,
He sneezed his head and tail right off.

So, Cotton-Eyed Joe, he had a wooden leg,
Leg wasn't nothing but a little wooden peg,
One shoe off and one shoe on,
He could do a double-shuffle till the cows come home.

[Don't sing first time around]
If it had not 'a' been for the Cotton-Eyed Joe,
I'd 'a' been married twenty years ago.

[Don't sing first time around]
So, eighteen, nineteen, twenty years ago,
Papa worked a man called Cotton-Eyed Joe,