The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #25394   Message #2419631
Posted By: GUEST,Josh
21-Aug-08 - 02:48 PM
Thread Name: Old Joe Clark. THE folk song/tune?
Subject: RE: Old Joe Clark. THE folk song/tune?
I have been playing a version of this song that I believe I based almost entirely on Woody Guthrie's version on the 2-disc Smithsonian/Alan Lomax recordings. I'm almost positive I got these lyrics in particular from his interpretation of it. Now that I google the song, I don't find some these two particular verses, but I like the old fashioned message in it. Woody seems to have a pretty original rendering which isn't based on any of the historical facts I find about Joe Clark, but based on the theme of those recordings, one would infer it was the Okie version of the song. He only seems to be playing an excerpt at Lomax's request.

Old Joe Clark had a dog as blind as he could be
Chase a possum up a hollow log, you'd swear that dog could see

Old Joe Clark killed a girl and threw her in the branch
Old Joe Clark's gonna get hanged, ain't no other chance.

In between, he also does the often repeated verse about the cat in the buttermilk jar, and he says in kind of a break "Fare thee well, Old Joe Clark, Goodbye Betty Brown" which I love because it seems dark and ominous when you consider that last lyric. The thing I like about this version really is that it seems to make a statement about how violence towards women should be punished.