Guest: “Which came first? Chicken or the egg?”

Rooster.


Eliza Jane; Lucy Long; Old Joe and Pomp (Pompey) were all stock minstrel characters pretty much from the start (c.1840.)

“Many are the verses and variations to Liza Jane, but "Old Joe Clark" is the banner song for length. "There are one hundred and forty-four verses to 'Old Joe Clark,' though I don't know all of them," modestly affirmed a popular "caller" in Nolan County.”

46. OLD JOE CLARK.
Old Joe Clark is dead and gone,
I hope he's doin well(1)
He made me wear the ball and chain
Till it made my ankles swell.

Chorus—

Round and round, old Joe Clark,
Round and round, I say;
Round and round, old Joe Clark,
I ain't got long to stay.

Eighteen pounds of meat a week,
Bacon (candy) here to sell,
How can a young man stay at home,
When the gals all look so well.

Old Joe Clark had a big white house,
Sixteen stories high,
And every room in that old house
Was filled with chicken pie.

Old Joe Clark is mad at me,
I'll tell you the reason why,
I went down to old Joe's house
And ate all his chicken pie.

Old Joe Clark had a possum dog
So blind he couldn't see;
He treed a chigger on a log,
And thought it was a flea.

(1) In more boisterous gatherings a more profane wish is expressed in this
line.

[Thompson, Stith, ed., Some Texas Party-Play Songs, Publications of the Folk-Lore Society of Texas, No.1, (Austin, 1916, p.32)]