Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody

Subject: RE: Origins: History of Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: Azizi
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 07:18 AM

This discussion is fascinating!

I had a paper back copy of Tempi Cummins
Narative that I got from a used store, but somehow misplaced it.
I'm glad to see that it is online.

I'm wondering about another portion of this song.

Dicho's post of 22 Oct 01 - 12:53 AM mentions these lines from "Go Tell Aunt Dinah" [Version from Alabama, recorded by Lomax on his 1939 Southern Collecting Trip.]

Walkin' round dat green tree, walkin' round dat green tree
Walkin' round dat green tree, de ole grey goose is dead.

-snip-

These might have been an add-on from another song-who will ever know?!

But I'm wondering does anything think that there's a connection between these words and the words "walking on the green grass?" that are found in folk songs & children's rhymes?

See this short thread A Sailor Boy in which a copy of versions of this song include these words:

"We go walking on the green grass, thus, thus, thus,
Come all you pretty fair maids..."

Also I found mention of "walking on the green grass" in a post in the Children's Street Song threads.

[I apologize if I should not have reposted it without permission]

Subject: RE: Children's Street Songs
From: Alice - PM
Date: 06 Mar 98 - 11:48 PM

I remember being at a birthday party when I was about 7, and the mother of the birthday girl was from the Southern US. She taught us a game we played at the party that was two lines of girls walking back and forth, towards and then away from each other. The song was "Walkin' on the green grass, green grass, green grass, Walkin' on the green grass, Rat-ta-tat-ta-tee-i-oh."
What are you doin that for, that for, etc.
We're goin' to get married, married, etc.
Who ya gonna marry, marry, etc.
We're gonna marry, XXX, XXX, etc.
Then the chosen girl would go over to the other side. Anyone else hear of this one? I always connected it to the South, because this mom had a southern drawl, which seemed really exotic in Montana...

Also, it just occurred to me to ask does this "walking on the green grass" floating verse have anything to do with the 'Green Gravel' songs?

Thanks,

Azizi

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: Croco Maes
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 09:00 PM

I first came across this song in a recording of a Pete Seeger Singalong. I believe it was a live recording made in 1980 or '81 at a university up north (I believe it was Massachusetts). Seger song and banjoed hie way through 5 strophes with the public joining in:

=> Go tell Aunt Rhodie - The old grey goose is death

=> The one she has been saving - to make a feather bed

=> The old gander's weeping - because his wife is death

=> the gosslings are a-mourning - because their mother's death

=> she died in the millpond - a-standing on her head

Seeger always lead the first verse, let the public catch in on the second and third and then give the conclusion line. He seemed to accentuate the words 'saving' 'a-mourning' and so on, to make it sound like a spiritual with a preacher leading the song and the congregation falling in. Therefore, my first idea was that the sone was a kind of spoof on a black spiritual, making it sound like a religious song, but with a set of nonsensical verses.

Subsequently I started singing the song as a spoof spiritual, me playing the preacher, laying out the first line, having the 'choir' fall in with lots of 'hallelujah' and 'Ooh-Lord' in between the lines.The fourth line (the conclusion) I would speak --- preach--- with my 'congregation' repeating it.

Ps, my 'choir' mostly being young male co-workers we would always sing the third verse: the old gander's weeping - For the best (explicit) he ever had

'Niklas

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 10:45 PM

Go Tell Aunt Rhody was sung by Joan Baez & Peter Yarrow at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival.

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 05:50 PM

The first time I ever heard this song, which was, ironically, in Fresno, CA in around 1957 or '58, I thought it was one of the least scintillating songs I had ever heard. Of course, the performance (by a well-meaning, but monotone lady who looked like the teacher on "Ding Dong School") might have had something to do with it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: GUEST,Peanut Buddy
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 02:02 AM

My Grandmother grew up in Zebulon, Georgia. Born May 19, 1894. Her "Aunt Carrie" had sung this to her when she was a child. She sang "Go Tell Aunt Tabby" to me throughout my childhood.

Go tell Aunt Tabby (3X)
the old grey goose is dead.

The one she's been savin' (3X)
to make her feather bed.

John Thomas killed her (3X)
he hit her on the head.

Bury her in the garden (3X)
the old grey goose is dead.

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 02:34 AM

I used often to sing this song, learned from The Burl Ives Song Book, about 50+ years ago, as an old schoolfriend recently reminded me. My recollection is that Ives' version began in D-major, then {& I would do it this way also} modulated to the tonic minor for the "died in the millpond' & "old grey gander crying" & "left 9 little gosling" verses, then back to the major for repeat 1st verse; but that most singers didn't do this, but remained in the major thru'out. Is my recollection of these variations in the tune as sung by Burl Ives correct?

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: Rowan
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 05:30 PM

MtheGM, your memory is probably correct (although I have no access to the disc) because I must have picked up the habit of singing it (in the minor, throughout) from somewhere and it isn't a song that is part of the Australian tradition. Burl Ives performed here in the 50s and became part of the tradition that says "I'm interested in folk music. I've got a Burl Ives/ Kingston Trio/etc/etc/etc record at home."

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: GUEST
Date: 25 May 10 - 05:35 PM

Five years onward and I have an odd connection. There is a painting by a Quaker artist named Marcus Mote(1817-1898) in the Museum in Richmond, Indiana. It depicts a scene from the temperence movement where the local Quaker ladies boycotted and picketed a local grocery store that was known to sell buckets of beer to children. Apparantly, this particular demonstration made national news with reporters coming from as far away as Chicago. What is the connection you ask? The grocery was named The Old Gray Goose and Mr. Mote's wife and Quaker demonstrater was named Rhoda. I have to wonder if there wasn't some symbolism in Rhoda Mote trying to bring the demise of the Old Gray Goose, and telling Aunt Rhodie that the Old Gray Goose is Dead.
Perhaps it is nothing more than a coincidence, but since there seems to be no definitive history to the lyrics I found it very interesting. Any thoughts?

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 25 May 10 - 06:17 PM

There is a previous thread, here . My first memory of Dusty Springfield is of her singing Aunt Rhody with the Springfields.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: GUEST,norton howe
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 11:16 AM

Re: "Go tell Aunt Rhody"

I am 73 years old. My grandmother sang this song to me while rocking me to sleep. My great grandmother was a piano teacher,so she might have bought the collection of Southern and Appalachian folk songs when my uncle was born around 1918. If I were to search for European origins, I would begin with Scotch-Irish traditions. So many songs emanate from plagues, such as the "Black Death." Maybe the song came from a poultry disease many years ago in Europe.

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: Joe_F
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 07:41 PM

As I learned it from my mother ca. 1940, it contained the odd stanza

    She died a-laughing,...
    'Cause she'd lost her head.

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 04:32 AM

···So many songs emanate from plagues, such as the "Black Death."···
====
A much-disputed assertion. The great children's folklorist Peter Opie once dismissively described this theory in relation to 'Ring-o-Roses' [on which see several threads] as "one of those pieces of folklore about folklore", in an interview I did with Peter & Iona Opie for Folk Review July 1974, published under title "The Children's Child". "We have had a publisher badgering us for the secret history of nursery rhymes, as if all we have published is the official story and we know something more but we won't say. And this is what has made it a woolly, silly subject".

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: GUEST,AST
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 10:22 AM

I am 71 and grew up in the Georgia. My Dad sang this song to us and I sang it as a lullaby to my children. I knew the chorus and two verses. The first verse was "Go tell Aunt Tabbie the old grey goose is dead. The one she's been saving to make a feather bed." The second verse was "Go tell Aunt Tabbie the old grey goose is dead. The Yankee soldiers kill him to eat with their cornbread." This certainly supports the belief that the song came out the civil war. I love the song because my Dad sang it to me and I sang it to my grandchildren when they were too little to understand any words. I wish I could pass it on, but I'm afraid it sounds too "old south" and thus racist.

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 08:19 PM

I think you're worrying too much. There is no real evidence that this is a southern song, and even if it were, so what? Is it somehow shameful that there is a southern part to our country?

We heard this song as a lullaby when I was little kid in Chicagoland. It was neither northern or southern, it was just a song. It could have happened on any farm where there's a goose and a pond.

I have my doubts about your "Yankee soldier" verse. A farm dweller wouldn't call a goose, which is female, "him." Not that I think you're lying; I think somebody with a politcal agenda slapped the verse onto an old song. I recommend that you ditch that verse and continue to enjoy singing to children.

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: GUEST,David Lawrence
Date: 03 May 12 - 03:05 PM

My grandmother born 1989 Georgia, sang the last two lines

She died a smilin x2
On her feather bed. (from the goose!)

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 May 12 - 12:13 AM

Grandmother from 1989 Georgia? Your grandmother is 23 years old? Oy. I gave birth to a daughter in 1988. I hope you mean your grandmother was born in 1889?

SRS

Subject: RE: Origins: Go Tell Aunt Rhody
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 30 Jul 12 - 02:50 AM

As another point of reference, the tune to "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" is used in the last part of the Aggie War Hymn, the official fight song of Texas A&M University, which was written in 1919. The lyrics are "Saw varsity's horns off (x3); Short! A! Varsity's horns are sawed off (x3); Short! A!" It refers to sawing the horns off of the University of Texas mascot, the Longhorn steer.