The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #117581   Message #2535492
Posted By: Artful Codger
08-Jan-09 - 06:06 PM
Thread Name: DTStudy: The Little Brown Bulls
Subject: RE: DTStudy: The Little Brown Bulls
Google Books has a limited preview of Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy, by Franz Lee Rickaby, in which one full text and two tunes are readable on pp. 65-68. The full version is as sung by Fred Bainter (Ladysmith, WI), who got the words from Joe Bainter (Gordon, WI). The second tune, with the same first stanza, was sung by W.H Underwood (Bayport, MN). Also see the author's footnotes on p. 206.

Google Books' preview of Our Singing Country, by Alan Lomax &o., includes another text with tune, as sung by Carl Lathrop (Mt. Pleasant, MI, 1939). Sadly, only the first nine verses are viewable.

The authors include this interesting quotation: "When you get to the last of the song, you speak the words so that everyone will know the song is ended, at least I suppose that's why you do it. Anyhow, whether that is why or not, that's what all the old-time woods singers I ever heard always did." —Bill McBride, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.

Another incomplete text appears in Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan, by Emelyon Elizabeth Gardner, but this version contains corruptions such as "gourd stick" and "gourding eight foot and three". Apparently learned from Lady Mondegreen.