For those who want to focus on the discussion about the meaning of the color black ...sorry...Of course, you can skip the posts that present information/discuss snakes...

This post is about snakes...

I'd like to amend my 18 Mar 07 - 01:35 PM post that referred to the various meanings of snakes in songs etc. I shouldn't have limited the subject to just black snakes...

My sense is that in the floating verses about a person running through a field, getting their heel bit by a snake {black or otherwise}, and running into a hornet's nest, the snake is a snake {just like there are times when "a cigar is just a cigar".

Another example of a snake being just a snake is this children's rhyme:

Theres a place on mars where the women smoke cigars
Every puff they take is enough to kill a snake
When the snake is dead they put roses on its head
When the roses die . they put diamonds in its eyes
When the diamond break .. they begin to make a cake
When the cake is done ... it'll be 1991

-heather at March 18, 2006
http://blog.oftheoctopuses.com/000518.php

**
However, in this children's rhyme, the snake is a phallic symbol:
I was dreamin of genie
With a ten foor weinie
And I showed to the girl next door.

She though it was a snake
And she hit it with a rake
And now it's only five foor four...

-Cassi at April 17, 2004; http://blog.oftheoctopuses.com/000518.php

**

Of course, a prime example of the snake as a phallic symbol is Blind Lemon Jefferson's Black Snake Moan:

See this excerpt from:

"Subject: Lyr Add: BLACK SNAKE MOAN (Blind Lemon Jefferson)
From: Jim Dixon - PM
Date: 16 Jan 05 - 07:21 PM

BLACK SNAKE MOAN
Blind Lemon Jefferson

Oh-h, ain't got no mama now.
Oh-h, ain't got no mama now.
She told me late last night. "You don't need no mama nohow."

Mm-m, black snake crawlin' in my room.
Mm-m, black snake crawlin' in my room.
Some pretty mama better come and get this black snake soon."

...

Mm-m, what's the matter now?
Mm-m, honey, what's the matter now?
Sugar, what's the matter? Don't like no black snake nohow.

Mm-m, wonder where my black snake gone.
Mm-m, wonder where the black snake gone.
Old black snake mama done run my darlin' home.

[Sung by Blind Lemon Jefferson on the various-artists CD "The Story of the Blues," Columbia Legacy 86334.]

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['black snake' here may refer to both 'man' and 'man's penis'].