The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #2649   Message #4164252
Posted By: BrooklynJay
02-Feb-23 - 06:31 PM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: Whoa Back Buck (Leadbelly)
Subject: RE: Lyr ADD: Whoa Back Buck (Leadbelly)
Found this one that I didn't realize I had:

In Alan Lomax's book Folk songs of North America, he says:

"This is Lead Belly's variant of a Negro ploughman's song, which occasionally satirizes the poor whites; known from Texas to Miss[issippi]."

Lomax lists it as coming from the book Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly, copyright 1936. I have slightly reformatted it, but the text is unchanged.

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This man was drivin' twenty yokes of oxen. He was a long ways from home an' it was a slow, drizzlin' rain and the man was cold. He was tryin' to git his oxens to hurry up a little faster, so ev'y once in a while he'd cut down on um—TI-YOW! he'd pop that long blacksnake whip. But you know about how much speed oxen has got. 'Stead of them gettin' faster, they was speedin' up slower . . .

Tom done buck and Bill won't pull,
Papa gonna cut that other little bull.
Whoa back, Buck, an' gee, by the Lamb!
Who made the back-band? Whoa, goddam!
   
CHORUS:
Whoa, Buck, an' gee, by the Lamb!
Who made the back-band? Whoa, goddam!
(or)
Whoa, goddamn, an'-a whoa, goddam!
Who made the back-band? Whoa, goddam!

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty years ago,
I taken Sal to the party-o,
I taken Sal to the party-o,
Wouldn' let her dance but a set or so. (CHO.)

Me an' my gal come walkin' down the road,
Wind from her feet knockin' Sugar in the Gourd.
Sugar in the gourd and the gourd on the ground,
Want to get the sugar gotta roll the gourd around. (CHO.)

Chicken in the bread-tray, mighty good stuff,
Mama cook him chicken an' he never get enough,
Jawbone eat an'-a jawbone talk,
Jawbone eat with a knife an' fawk. (CHO.)