Lyr ADD: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up (Hirsch, Kaplan)

Subject: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 03 Jun 01 - 05:21 AM

G'day,

Just listening to an historical programme on the wireless. There's a reminiscence from an 81 year old of the first tune he ever played Horsey Keep Your Tail Up. The tune (played by a 20s small band) is familiar - so is the title. BUT - there's a blank on the words...;(

Anyone remember?

Sam

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Stewie
Date: 03 Jun 01 - 07:13 AM

Some of it turns up in 'Old Gray Mare'. See the version posted by Sandy Paton (with a little help from Joe Offer):

Click Here

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 03 Jun 01 - 08:30 AM

Thanks Stewie - knew the answer would be here

Sam

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Callie
Date: 03 Jun 01 - 08:40 AM

A friend of ours in Sydney sings

"horsey keep your tail up, keep your tail up, keep your tail up,
horsey keep your tail up
keep the sun out of my eyes"

often!

It has entered into our friendship group's common songs!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 06:43 PM

This is one of very few songs my father ever sang, and I think he sang only the lines Callie posted, no more, no less. But I think he sang "hold" not "keep." And I believe the tune he used was "Ach du lieber Augustine," (or is it "du liebe Augustine"?) though I don't think he knew it was called that.

And judging from the way he laughed when he sang it, it contains a subtle dirty joke. I haven't spent much time around horses, but I THINK the only time a horse raises its tail is when it's about to do something disgusting. And if the sun were high in the sky, you'd have to be standing awfully close to the horse to be shaded by its tail—way too close. Visualizing this is probably what made him laugh. In his youth, he had spent a lot of time "following the plow" in the sun behind a horse or mule, so he would have known.

My father, by the way, grew up in Kentucky. I have no idea when or where he learned the song. Interesting that it is also known in Australia.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Apr 02 - 06:58 PM

Jim D, there are some horses, especially stallions, who arc their tails. But you're right- it's a safe bet that when a horse, whether it's standing or in motion, raises its tail, you don't want to be following too close. I understand the same thing is true of sled dog teams! Yuck

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 12:54 PM

Yeah, I also remember my father singing it as Callie posted it. "Ach, du lieber Augustine" was the tune.

It was a standard joke to say to some kid who had a lot of freckles, "What happened to you? Did you stand behind a horse?"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: GUEST,Lyle
Date: 19 Apr 02 - 09:10 PM

This was one of Spike Jones' great songs that he did often. It is on his "Strictly for Music Lovers" album. Should be able to find it in places like CD Now. I've got the words somewhere, but might take a month to find them!

Lyle

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 01:02 AM

Stewie, in that previous thread you posted a link to, there was another link to a midi of the tune that doesn't seem to exist anymore (and I can't find Old Grey Mare or "horsey" in the DT).

In anycase, I can't seem to fit the full version of the OGM lyrics into the entire tune as I know it. Does anybody out there have a fuller midi?

And, thanks, Billy and Stewie, for bringing this up again. I never knew, until now, the long version of Old Grey Mare -- it certainly isn't as disparaging of old age as it seems when the major line is "aint what she used to be".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 02:31 PM

Hi, CapriUni - the tune I know is playing in the background on this page (click). Is that the same as what you know?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Jeanie
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 02:47 PM

Just to confuse the issue still further: I was talking to my 82 year old mum today about this song - I remembered her singing it to me. Her father used to sing the same words as posted here, but the tune is different from both "Du lieber Augustin" and the one on the website mentioned by Joe. I'll see if I can put it down in some sort of intelligible notation on here.

Interesting how far afield this song is known: My mum and family were on a farm just outside Cardiff in South Wales.

- Jeanie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: GUEST,Lyle
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 05:23 PM

Much more than you really wanted to know:

Found at: http://www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/chubb/horsey.ram Go here to listen to a recording, written by (Waltler Hirsch / Bert Kaplan)

Found at: http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/basic_black/wwwboard/messages/1013.html Posted by Jim Shaw on January 29, 2002 at 15:24:58: I was surprised to hear Dinah Christies sing the song (different melody and some changed words than the one I know). Even more surprising was that it was supposed to have been sung during WWI by the Dumbells. According to the Oxford University Press book - "Great Song Thesaurus", which I own-- The song was written by Walter Hirsch and Bert Kaplan in 1923 (after WWI). The version that I have by Freddy "Schnicklefritz" Fisher was released on Decca records ca. 1940. This is probably the version that was well-known. I have the record which I can send on a CD-R, If needed.

Found at: http://www.l-m-c.org.uk/texts/hall.html OFFBEAT ROOTS: Reg Hall interviewed by Ed Baxter RH: I think it's functional. Dance music was for dancing to. It was for a whole range of pleasures, but its main function was as dance music and therefore all its characteristics were to do with making you want to dance. Traditional music has always been on the move, it's always been developing, it's always been changing, and even since perhaps even the 17th century it's been taking in music from the culture higher up the social scale. The element that is common to all traditional musicians is that he or she actually mediates the material into their own way of thinking. So that in the '20s when people like Scan Tester and his mates in Sussex - who were all ear players and had roots back 150 years in oral music - actually heard the Savoy Orpheans playing Horsey Horsey Keep Your Tail Up on a gramophone record or on the radio, they actually mediated that into their own way of playing. They took all the swing, all the jazz element, all the chromatic harmony out of it, and played it as if it were an early 19th century dance tune, although its structure might remian. So one element of tradition is not going along with bourgeois sophistication, with education. Not that you reject it - they just can't handle it, just can't cope with it.

From: THE BLOCKHEAD MUSIC STAND: THE DUKE OF ELLINGTON Found at: http://www.blockhead.com/duke.htm "...Generally, the stage show consisted of the band and a couple of tired vaudeville comedians or dancers and "personality" was a very big thing. All the band leaders wanted to ingratiate themselves to the audience and would do almost anything to be liked and appreciated. A couple of weeks before Ellington came to town, Pinky Tomlin and his orchestra (does anyone else remember him?) appeared on the same stage. Tomlin tried to resurrect his fifteen minutes of fame which came with a recording of a delightful little song called THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION, probably the only good song he ever wrote, with a new, sprightly number, HORSEY KEEP YOUR TAIL UP. I venture to say that I am the only person in the world who can sing that song from memory. It was not a great success, but it exemplifies the urgency with which those lesser band leaders tried to ingratiate themselves with the audience. The last line of that less than memorable ditty, was "Keep the sun out of my eyes."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 05:45 PM

Joe, no, that is not the tune I know at all... And I don't know how to discribe the tune I do know (Kinda like trying to describe a flavor, that! ;-)) Even so, I couldn't seem to make all the words fit..

:::Sigh::: This may be one of those songs I need to hear sung by a living, breathing organic singer for me to "get" it...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Emma B
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 05:50 PM

My grandfather, who served in W.W.1 used to sing this to me as a young child and follow it with The Moon Shines bright on Charlie Chaplin etc... This was in the North-west of England in the late 40's but I can't remember him singing anything other than the 'chorus'. I don't think he sang it with any scatological connotations

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Jeanie
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 06:42 PM

Thanks, Lyle ! The tune on the website you mentioned: www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/chubb/horsey.ram is the one my mum sings. I wonder if this is the one CapriUni knows, too?

Here is the verse(taken from that recording):

Now Reuben's wife, she was so silly,

She never wore her hat.

And though the sun was shining,

She didn't give a darn about that.

You could seen them driving in their buggy every day,

And Reuben, he would lean right back

And hear his wifey say:

"Horsey, keep your tail up ..." etc.

- Jeanie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 07:53 PM

I wonder if this is the one CapriUni knows, too?

Nope. The song that I learned only had the lines:

"The old grey mare, she ain't what she used to be
ain't what she used to be
ain't what she used to be
The old grey mare, she ain't what she used to be
39 years ago."

And the tune had more of the same feel as Camptown Races (though that's not the same tune, either)

This tune (playing now) reminds me more of "Buffalo Gals" ... Like I said, like describing a flavor...

I suspect we may be talking about different songs with some lines in common.

I think I'll try a Google search, and see if I come across something that rings a bell.

Be back later...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 08:04 PM

Found it! here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Apr 02 - 08:56 PM

I've lost track of what goes to where here, but thanks Joe. As usual, Father Joebro has come up with the tune I know for "Horsey keep your tail up!"

Spaw

Subject: paddy roberts
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 03 - 02:04 PM

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: GUEST,ClaireBear
Date: 08 Dec 03 - 05:08 PM

Thanks, GUEST, for refreshing this thread even though it looks like you wanted to talk about something else...

While we're here, my husband swears that when he was growing up in small-town Texas, he used to hear a song with this chorus:

Horsey keep your tail up, horsey keep your tail up
keep the sun out of my eyes
Horsey keep your tail up, horsey keep your tail up
Never mind about the flies.

He asserts that it's NOT the tune on Joe Offer's polka site link -- he's sung the chorus to me but unfortunately he's completely tone deaf so I can't begin to guess at the tune from what I'm hearing -- and he claims that the verses were about a very bad rider who puts the wrong foot in the stirrup and ends up riding backwards.

Any info out there about that version?

(Yes, I've done my Mudcat homework this time, so you needn't scour the 'cat site on my behalf.)

Thanks!

Claire

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Little Robyn
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 03:03 AM

My Grandmother (1891-1976) used to sing it too but not to that tune.
The tune given by CapriUni is one we sang at Sunday School many long years ago -
I'm in the Lord's Army, I'm in the Lord's Army,
I may never ...(I forget)... ride in the cavalry, shoot in the tillery,
I may never fly o'er the enemy,
But I'm in the Lord's Army!

Which came first then? The old grey mare or the Lord's Army?
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Little Robyn
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 03:17 AM

I'm trying to remember that missing line. It could be -
I may never march in the Infantry,...
Yep, that sounds right.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 05:00 AM

'Horsey Keep your Tail up' was a popular dance band number in the 20s and 30s. According to Michael Kilgarriff (most Muddies would find his 'Sing Us Oneof the Old Songs' OUP 1998 really useful) it was written (written down?) by Walter Hirsch and Walter Kaplan and published in 1923. The tune I remember well was not the one on the Joe Offer link.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 12:58 PM

Now, we have to give credit where credit is due. The MIDI is by "Polka Joe" Larson, of Norm Dombrowski and the Happy Notes.

---

Click to play

---

This is very similar to the tune used by Spike Jones and his City Slickers. Now, I don't know if I'd use Spike Jones as an authority on what the original tune was, but I'll betcha most people know the song from the Spike Jones recording. We still need to find the original tune from the original recording, so the hunt continues. If somebody can find the sheet music and send me a scan or a midi or NWC transcript, I'll post it.
-Joe Offer-
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 10:20 AM

Click here to see several CDs of Freddie Fisher and His Schnickelfritz Band. (He is referred to elsewhere as Friddie "Schnickelfritz" Fisher.) One of the CDs is called HORSEY KEEP YOUR TAIL UP, and you can play a short sound sample of the tune. The sample contains no words, but you might be able to learn the tune from it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
From: GUEST,Jan Kuehlman
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 11:42 AM

I stumbled across this site looking for "Hog Dog Joe" polka -- no luck so far. My 89-year-old father sang "Horsey Keep Your Tail Up" at his grandchildren's weddings. Dad grew up on a farm in central Wisconsin, son of Polish immigrant parents. About age 10-12 he left to work in the fields in the Dakotas. Where he picked up the song, we'll never know. Often times when he would sing it, Pa would switch from English to Polish. None of his children know the words but the tune is the Norm Dombroski Orchestra version. Every time he would sing the, he would get to laughing so hard he could hardly finish the song. Of course, the grandchildren would request it more and more ...

Subject: Lyr Add: HORSEY, KEEP YOUR TAIL UP (Hirsch, Kaplan
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 02:09 PM

Found it! The sheet music can be seen here: at Indiana State University.


HORSEY, KEEP YOUR TAIL UP (KEEP THE SUN OUT OF MY EYES)
By Walter Hirsch and Bert Kaplan
M. Witmark & Sons, 1923

VERSE 1: Reuben is so silly, he will never wear a hat.
Tho' the sun is shining, he don't give a darn for that.
You can see him driving in his buggy ev'ry day.
He just leans back and shakes the reins, and you can hear him say:

CHORUS 1: Oh, Horsey! keep yer tail up, keep yer tail up, keep yer tail up.
Oh, Horsey! keep yer tail up. Why don't you make it rise?
Tell me how you get that way.
You mean "Yes" and say "Neigh, neigh."
Oh, Horsey! Keep your tail up! Keep the sun out of my eyes!

VERSE 2: Ev'ry Sunday morning Reuben goes out for a ride,
Ev'ry Sunday morning with his girlie by his side.
If the day is cloudy, ev'rything is very well,
But when it's bright, it's his delight to get right up and yell:

CHORUS 2: Oh, Horsey! keep yer tail up, keep yer tail up, keep yer tail up.
Oh, Horsey! keep yer tail up. Why don't you make it rise?
Keep it up or off it goes.
Horses' tails make fiddle-bows,
So, Horsey! Keep your tail up! Keep the sun out of my eyes!

CHORUS 3: Oh, Horsey! keep yer tail up, keep yer tail up, keep yer tail up,
Oh, Horsey! keep yer tail up. Why don't you make it rise?
Keep it up, I'll lose my breath.
Gosh! you tickle me to death,
So, Horsey! Keep your tail up! Keep the sun out of my eyes!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up (Hirsch, Kaplan)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 21 Nov 19 - 07:05 PM

Horsey, Keep Your Tail Up · Spike Jones
Light Crust Doughboys -Horsie' Keep Your Tail Up
Melville Gideon - Horsey Keep Your Tail Up
Lew Childre - Horsie Keep Your Tail Up

Subject: RE: Lyr ADD: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up (Hirsch, Kaplan)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 24 - 10:50 AM

My 97 year old father said the next lines were:

Horsey keep your tail up (chorus)… Never mind about the flies

(Chorus)…even though it hurts to try

Subject: RE: Lyr ADD: Horsey Keep Your Tail Up (Hirsch, Kaplan)
From: GUEST,Beachcomber
Date: 04 Jul 24 - 08:11 AM

I rem my late mother singing the most usual lines to "Horsey" to my brother and I back in the late 1940s. She had been in New York in the 1920s where, so she used to say, she'd learned the song.