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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 20 May 25 - 08:12 PM Here's how I think of it. Take this "song"/"chant": "Wipe Me Down" (starts about 40 seconds in) Some local guys from Baton Rouge, LA, just up the road from New Orleans. I dare you not to hear "Wipe me down!" as a phrase wholly comfortable in a work song of the Americas or Africa. Sailors hauling on a brace to sweat the line, perhaps? Wipe me DOWN! Do you have any idea what they mean by "Wipe me down?" Don't Google-research it. What's going on in this FOLK community gathering of people circled around, rhyming, moving their bodies, and cyclically unified by this catchy (*I* think) hook: "Wipe me down!" Does it have a literal meaning? A figurative one? No meaning, just sounds good and the words vaguely fit an action? Maybe all of these at once? But what does it "mean"? What if you—you who don't *quite* know what it means—find it catchy, start singing it, start moving to it. You take it over for your social music making. You appreciate how you can fill in your own rhymes, words that are clear to you. But also you keep the "Wipe me down!" which kind of sort of doesn't mean anything but also is weirdly "meaningful" for you in an oblique way? What if you're a British captain that strolls into this scene? lol. A British captain who seventy years later finds himself in the position of what modern parlance calls a "content creator." Not only do you share that "old favourite," "Wipe Me Down," but also you feel this compulsion to add some Authoritative Voice to your "content." You'll also "explain" what these songs mean. "British sailors swabbed the deck twice a day and we called it 'wiping it down'." lol x 2 I think Solomon Northup is our earliest (or at least one of the earliest) source for "Hog-eye." Northup, the Black man from the North who was kidnapped and enslaved in the early 1840s on a Louisiana plantation for 12 years. Comes out of the experience and shares the tale in 1853. Says that his fellow slaves entertained themselves with song, dance, patting Juba. The fellow slaves were both people with whom he gained intimate familiarity and "others" in that he came from a different background. So, he observes keenly. And he says they sang "Hog-eye." Wipe me down! Subsequently, "Hog-eye" gains some notoriety among people outside that Black American enslaved community. Not limited to sailors. References precede in this thread. White folks associate "Hog-eye" with Black corn-shuckings (truly the site of much African American song material prior to Emancipation). My own interpretation is that the word "hog-eye" alone didn't necessarily allude to anything obscene—Lighter makes the point above that it was printed without reservations. Rather, people understood that the song with the hog-eye chorus customarily included obscene verses. Jinny in the the garden and all that. Wipe me down! "We'll never know the definite origin" is a truism, but we have good evidence to see "Hog-eye" as a song emerging from Black American (probably rural, definitely enslaved) singers. We also see that the song was known (albeit *as* an African American song) to White Americans who were *not* sailors by trade. And then we know sailors sang it and it's folded under the discursive umbrella of "chanties" (though its form has some notable difference from the majority of songs that got labelled as chanties). Wipe me down! By the time Content Creator Whall is writing, the song is, well, stuck in his brain as among that grand category.... The Chanties of Sailors. What did Whall know about slave songs? (The prejudice he shows in his collection [cf notes in 1920 edition] hints that he didn't give a hoot about what Black people sang because he thought it was trashy—which might mean he really neglected that line of observation.) Perhaps he even knew very little about what down-home White Americans sang in their pop music. In other words, "Hog-eye" exist for Whall only within the rubric of sailor chanties. Wipe me down! And now Whall's task is to step up to the plate and show his authority, stand out among the pre-1910 lubbers that wrote on the subject, represent the British Omniscience for SIR Walter Runciman. Skenandoah the Indian Chief. Jack Ketch the hangman of Hanging Johnny. The Rape of Lucrece and A-rovin'. Brits fighting the US alongside Santa Anna. The ancient bowline of Louis XIV or Henry VIII or whatever. It's all boats and ancient British history. He's like those overdubbed narrators on every BBC documentary. Wipe me down! With our hindsight, we have no more reason to be looking for boats to explain "Hogeye" than we have to explain "Wipe Me Down." But Whall, in his time/place, had every reason. Redbones, caramels, all of them stop and stare All of them trying to steal my underwear Wipe me down! Are we done making up Jack Tar stories about these dumb/fun rhymes and choruses? |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 20 May 25 - 07:39 PM Again, see my previous upthread. None of us have anything but Whall on the subject and it's just not that long a read. "THIS shanty dates from 1849-50..." and every last darn factoid in the intro that follows. Whall could not have observed or remembered details down to a specific two-year span all by his lonesome. Most of what can be sorted is just not true. Fiction or not, Whall's sources are MIA. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: sciencegeek Date: 20 May 25 - 06:35 PM I am not following your maths... do you mean timeline? Whall went to sea in 1860 and spent 11 years at sea. Near the end of his life he wrote a book about his time at sea and the songs he remembered. A contemporary who also went to sea at the same time, though for a far longer period of time, read Whall's book and found no problem with it. It is you saying silly things. "It was not possible for Whall to have collected the subject “shanty” when and where it is placed." Please cite where you found Whall claiming to have collected a song from the northern California waterways. What he did say was that he sang the songs printed in the book onboard ships he was serving on, along with the rest of the crew. duh... He was sharing meaningful memories, not off on a song collecting mission. As for reference material use the Sibly Library of the world renown Eastman School of Music to download your very own copies of RR Terry's Shanty Books I & II. And read them. https://urresearch.rochester.edu/institutionalPublicationPublicView.action?institutionalItemId=24944&versionNumber=1 library to |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 20 May 25 - 05:19 PM One audience's 'nit' is n'other's heritage & culture. I know a lot of folks that feel the same way about Mel Gibson movies. Braveheart isn't a documentary. It's Jed Clampett with a brogue. Again with the maths and the born too late: It was not possible for Whall to have collected the subject “shanty” when and where it is placed. Not giving proper crediting to one's sources is both lousy fiction and nonfiction but for entirely different reasons. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: sciencegeek Date: 20 May 25 - 12:28 PM well, my rant was more about the "no nit, unpicked" philosophy of belaboring trivial points with escalating acrimony... well past time to take a chill pill. imho I guess the idea of newsprint being an ultimate source of info was a bit offsetting for a very personal reason. Newsday is a very large circulation newspaper serving the NYC area, including Long Island, and when Mike and I did our first folk concert the paper included our gig in the entertainment section... BUT our husband/wife photo got switched with that of a hip male jazz duo ... yikes! And due to the long drive involved, we were taking a young female high school student who we knew with us to the concert because we had been volunteer chaperones for their folk music club... but did not know the very alarmed parents who called us with a few questions. LOL One pissed off phone call later got an embarrassed Oops, so sorry, from the editor but no way to correct the error. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 20 May 25 - 11:33 AM Welllll… to say I use a different metric and glossary for the subject would be a teensy understatement… Taking Whall's maths and shanty calendar at face value, Stan Hugill was born too late for the genre & job title. I don't disagree. Whall is, hands down, the one and only and most authoritative source for San Franciscan hog-eye barge and has been that for over a century. Nobody or bot can match him… yet. But... have readers and audiences been getting their U.S. History lessons from a book of shanties for working shantymen or forebitters for landsmen? Fiction or non...??? |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: sciencegeek Date: 20 May 25 - 07:00 AM what a tempest in a teapot we have here... 175 years later on a point that the original shanty singers didn't care a hoot about. Whall admitted he had only hearsay and has been castigated. But not by his contemporaries. A certain "geordie" seaman was a contemporary, born the same year in Dunbar, thought very highly of Whall's book and called it very authoritative in his 1921 introduction to RR Terry's Shanty Book I... Sir Walter Runciman, Terry's uncle. both Shanty Books I and II can be downloaded from the Eastman School of Music's Sibley's online library website https://urresearch.rochester.edu/institutionalPublicationPublicView.action?institutionalItemId=24944&versionNumber=1 and background on Sir Walter below. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Runciman,_1st_Baron_Runciman Runciman wrote a few books about his life at sea that I highly recommend... the ship and crews, how shanties became ingrained into their lives and there hardships that they endured. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 19 May 25 - 01:00 PM All she wants is a Chinese man...…!!?? Methinks we're still looking for the San Francisco barge operator in particular. Whall: “THIS shanty dates from 1849-50. At that time gold was found in California. There was no road across the continent, and all who rushed to the goldfields (with few exceptions) went in sailing-ships round the Horn,...” The locals would beg to differ. Whall's 'few exceptions' ran to six figures… not counting the Panama route. Misinformed, forgetful or... the pop school of historical fact a la F-Troop & Daniel Boone TV shows. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: r.padgett Date: 19 May 25 - 11:14 AM "The complete absence of diligently sought-for evidence reasonably means that Whall was forgetful or misinformed on these points - it happens." Not necessarily so! Ray |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 19 May 25 - 08:57 AM These pretty much clinch it. Apologies for the offensive language of those days: Pacific-City Enterprise (Pacific City, Iowa [!]), Nov. 5, 1857: "Let old John Bull once get his blood fully up, and all Asia, with its hundreds of millions of spindle-shanked Hindoos, flat-headed Tartars and hog-eyed Chinese can't stop him." Solano-Napa [Calif.] News-Chronicle (Mar. 17, 1877): "A pair of Chinese lovers...two representatives of the hog-eyed race." |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 19 May 25 - 07:51 AM Exactly. Meaning "squint-eyed," "hog-eyed" may have been in American use only. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: RTim Date: 18 May 25 - 10:23 PM OK...I think we know now...!! Tim Radford |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: sciencegeek Date: 18 May 25 - 09:59 PM Since Whall was a British seaman born in 1847, going to sea from 1860 to 1874 sailing onboard East Indiamen, he admits to not have direct knowledge of what hogeye meant. His book published in 1910 was many decades later and was what he recollected from his youth and he most likely just heard offhand remarks that he took at face value. His book is archived here https://archive.org/details/shipsseasongssha00whal/page/118/mode/2up?view=theater |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 18 May 25 - 04:29 PM [citation needed] - “A Hog-Eye was distinctive flat-bottom boat or barge used in the shallow waters surrounding San Francisco Bay during the California Gold Rush, named from the dismissive name 'ditch-hog' applied to rivermen by deep-water sailors [citation needed] The term "hog-eye" was used in early blues songs as a euphemism for the female genitalia [citation needed]” [wiki] |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 18 May 25 - 02:55 PM More drift and speculation absent any real world connection to what Whall himself admits profound ignorance of... a San Francisco hogeye barge. Historians generally agree the locals were lagging the so-called “Old World” by just a wee bit of a maritime stretch. So somewhere in the late 'Stone Age' (Meso, Neo, whatevs) currach and dugout period of naval architecture. And just to keep in mind, all so-called New World “words” were spoken only. No alphabet(s) on that side of the conversation. What one reads in 2025 is/was always 100% Euro and gotten exclusively by ear. Back on topic: The documented 19th century Yerba Buena boat builders of the “barge/lighter” types were the Jesuits and London-born whaler William A. Richardson (1795-1856.) The latter also credited as the founder of the city that would become San Francisco. No Latin, Spanish or English hogeyes either... as yet. Turns out that bagpiper on a capstan was more likely by no less than one (1) instance… (Off to Ashantee!) Leave it to the Scots... |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: sciencegeek Date: 18 May 25 - 01:16 PM you have to go the Finger Lakes region of NYS to find the 18th century leader of the Iroquois Federation, more properly know as the Haudenosaunee. In my job we consulted with the local tribal leaders on environmental impact statements for projects near them. Our best man at our wedding was 3/4 German and 1/4 Tuscarora, the 6th nation that joined them much later in history. The Haudenosaunee, meaning "People of the Longhouse," are a confederation of six Indigenous nations in North America, primarily known as the Iroquois Confederacy. They have a rich history and cultural legacy, including a constitution that served as a model for the United States Constitution. Their other name came French fur traders who made early contact with them. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: sciencegeek Date: 18 May 25 - 01:03 PM the one thing that Europeans did in the Americas was to scramble the words they heard spoken by the native people... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenandoah_Valley in eastern Long Island you drove from Lake Ronkonkoma down through Bohemia to get to Patchogue lol eastern Algonquian dialect with a touch of central Europe thrown in |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 18 May 25 - 11:40 AM The complete absence of diligently sought-for evidence reasonably means that Whall was forgetful or misinformed on these points - it happens. If not, where are the barge references? Where are the "collections"? Why beat a dead horse? |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: r.padgett Date: 18 May 25 - 11:23 AM Shenandoah was a celebrated Indian chief in American history, and several towns in the States are named after him. Besides being sung at sea, this song figured in old public school collections. The canoe -going fur-trading voyageurs were great singers, and songs were an important part of their culture. above from search for Shenandoah ~ leaves the question of "Old public school" Ray |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: r.padgett Date: 18 May 25 - 10:55 AM Shenandoah was a celebrated Indian chief He says also that it was a song he heard some 50 years before as a song ~ Some research needed on its origins No reason to suspect he made up hog eye origins? Perfectly feasible in my view Ray |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 18 May 25 - 09:16 AM Whall also asserts that "Shenandoah" "figured in old public school collections." Nobody's found even one that contains "Shenandoah/ The Wild Missouri." |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: r.padgett Date: 18 May 25 - 07:37 AM Sea songs and Shanties collected by W.B Whall 1910 and 1912 has Hogeye man says the shanty dates from 1849 to 185o The transportation of Gold from California by land was difficult as no railway across the land ~ so sea transportation led to barges called hog eyes (full of gold) or earth bearing gold Canals would be "Tom puddings" containing coal! Ray |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 17 May 25 - 03:36 PM Sciencegeek: Have you read this thread? Mudcat has "Hog eye" forebitter/chantey as young adult fiction dialog in the 1880s. Also from above: Sally in the garden, sifting sand, Jenny talking with a hog-eyed man; In a hog eye, In a hog eye, For all she wants is a hog-eyed man, With a heave oh, heave oh! Heave oh in a hog eye. Either the unearthly sound of the forecastle ditty, or the sight of the cutlasses, had a magic effect. The Mexicans drew back to a respectful distance, shouting, but making no attempt to attack either officers or men.” [St.John, Percy B., The Scourge of the Seas, Ch.V, Vera Cruz, (British Boys' Paper, 30 June 1888, p.284)] The derivation of the name is unknown to me. (Whall) Baseless speculation we got crappe tonnes of. Actual, real world naval architecture... not one single source... to date. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: sciencegeek Date: 17 May 25 - 11:41 AM the California Historical Society and it's 200 year collection is defunct as of this year with the collection transferred to the Standford University Library .. there is a contact librarian but suspect it take time to get it all accessioned and available. meanwhile here's a fun read https://blog.zarfhome.com/2024/09/she-wants-the-hog-eye-man |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 17 May 25 - 10:41 AM There was nothing inherently offensive about the term "hog eye." It appears hundreds of times in nineteenth-century papers - sometimes in reference to a "hog-eyed man" and in many cases as the name of a town (notably in Texas). If barges were known as "hog-eyes" we'd know it from more people than Whall. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: sciencegeek Date: 17 May 25 - 10:00 AM this is starting to get like tracing the yellow rose of Texas... the problem with newspaper articles is the self censoring done to keep up readership... you will not see profane or socially unacceptable terms in print, especially slang ... and hogeye has those connotations today and possibly in the past... heck... even on this medium you avoid using words that are viewed racist even when all you want tot do is examine the word and how it was used in the past example... my grandfather was born in the 1880's and went to after losing half his right arm as a kid and could do farm work.. he and a buddy risked their lives to get a black stoker out of a sinking ship who was still shoveling the coal into the boiler with his coattails floating behind him, he also let black dockworkers sleep in his boat when they were down and out... he also called them the N* word as naturally as he would use their proper names... notice that I did not use the actual word I heard him say time after time I suspect we would need access to the logbooks of the steamers that hauled the river barges to see when and if the term appears |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 17 May 25 - 03:10 AM Sciencegeek: Whall can be read @ 09 Jun 20 - 03:44 AM (above.) In all the googling, nobody, ...no-body... has located a single "hog-eye" vessel type reference in the document record. Not a California barge nor a Bahamian flat nor anything in between the deux. 'History' can always change in a New York minute but... as it stands, Whall is 1913 pop entertainment not 1850s California or maritime history. Insult or irony to injury, the music is much better known as a fiddle tune and google will peg that a 'chantey' too. Is nothing sacred? What's next? Bagpipers & banjos on the capstan? ;) |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 16 May 25 - 06:10 PM I wonder if I should take this personally? From "The Great Liars" (2014), a novel by Jerry Jay Carroll: "'Those sea shanties he sang,' Pettigrew said with irritation, 'who would have thought Whiskey Johnny would have so many verses, and then there was Hog-Eye Man. How can the man keep it all in his head?' "'He just about has total recall,' I said. "'Jesus, what a waste of a brain.'" |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 16 May 25 - 05:49 PM More fun: according to "A San Francisco Songster, 1849-1939," produced by the U.S. Works Projects Administration, a New Deal agency, informs the unsuspecting that: "A 'Hog-Eye' in sailor's slang was a barge that cruised round Cape Horn to California." Quite a trip for a barge. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 16 May 25 - 03:44 PM I have access to newspaper databases back to the 18th century comprising millions of pages of print. Also extensive book databases. A search finds not one example of barges or other vessels called "hogeyes" in San Francisco or anywhere else. And as I wrote upthread in 2020, there are no "hogeye" barges in the Century Dictionary or the Oxford English dictionary either. Thus the chances that the chantey (or the well-known American fiddle tune, the "Hogeye Man") have anything to do with barges are essentially zero. A "hog-eyed man" was a man with squinted or small eyes. The evident existence of a slang sense of "hog-eye" was, in terms of the song and the tune, fortuitous. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: sciencegeek Date: 16 May 25 - 03:35 PM can't find Whall, but since he gave a lead I googled California historical information and got this: While the term "hog-eye" in relation to barges has a strong association with the California Gold Rush era, the historical record and interpretations surrounding its origins are somewhat debated and multifaceted Here's a breakdown of the "hog-eye" barge history in California: 1. The Hog-Eye Barge: During the California Gold Rush (roughly 1848-1855), a type of flat-bottomed barge known as a "hog-eye" was used on the shallow waters of the San Francisco Bay and inland rivers. These barges were crucial for transporting goods and people to and from the gold fields and burgeoning settlements 2. Origin of the Term: Derogatory nickname: One theory suggests "hog-eye" originated from the dismissive term "ditch-hog," used by deep-water sailors to refer to rivermen or those who worked on these shallower vessels. D-Rings: Another, less substantiated claim, suggests the term comes from the large D-rings (called "hogeyes") on the sides of these barges used for towing. However, this theory remains unverified. Double Entendre: The term "hog-eye" also carries a separate, and potentially related, meaning as a euphemism for female genitalia, particularly in the context of some sea shanties. This double meaning adds to the complexity of the term's history. 3. Hog-Eye Men: The men who worked on these barges were sometimes referred to as "hog-eye sailors" or "hog-eye men". Depending on the context and the user, the term could carry connotations of being a riverman, a worker on these specific barges, or even a "womanizer", due to the double entendre mentioned earlier 4. Hog-Eye Shanty: "The Hog-Eye Man" is a well-known sea shanty that features this term, according to traditionalshanties.com. The shanty's origins are debated, but it's thought to have emerged in the mid-19th century and possibly tied to the California Gold Rush. The shanty's lyrics are often suggestive, playing on the double meaning of "hog-eye", adding to the term's historical complexity and intrigue. In Summary: The "hog-eye" barges were part of the California Gold Rush transportation system. The name's origin is likely a derogatory nickname for rivermen, possibly with a link to the term's double meaning as a euphemism. The term is further complicated by its use in the popular sea shanty "The Hog-Eye Man," which adds layers of interpretation and historical context feel free to agree or disagree |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: sciencegeek Date: 16 May 25 - 02:27 PM this site offers some points https://thelongestsong.fandom.com/wiki/Hog_Eye_Man slang is a moving target because each generation messes with it... sometimes going 180 degrees so it means the opposite gotta dig out Whalls to see about the barges |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Pappy Fiddle Date: 09 May 25 - 07:21 PM Ha ha that's me laughin'. The song about the "Bug-eye Sprite". My brother had an Austin-Healey Sprite. We drove it up to Pt. Magoo to see the air show. Good times. I'm laughing because later I bought a Fiat Spyder. In the 18 months I owned it I think I replaced every moving part. But when my girlfriend climbed in, she sat there and then started laughing. Why? Because it reminded her of the little cars at Disneyland. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 09 May 25 - 08:02 AM There was good old times in Salt Lake 1916. Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads by John A. Lomax. A verse from "The Bull-Whacker". pp.71-72. See here: https://archive.org/details/cu31924014386092/page/n101/mode/2up?q=%22hog+eye%22 |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 07 May 25 - 04:30 PM ... song have rather explicit racist and sexual references, Sing Out - Volume 30 [1984] - Page 25. Snippet view only. Anyone have access to the full article? |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 07 May 25 - 03:43 PM Hi, Email by Steve Gardham to the Ballad-L email list serv. Posted to the Camouflaged shanties, Pt. 7 (long) thread Jul 25, 2005. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 07 May 25 - 03:30 PM An American shanty group called The Boarding Party sang a stanza at Mystic 2005. Paul Stamler quotes Jonathan Lighter on the BALLAD-L email list serv. in the Camouflaged shanties, Pt. 7 (long) thread. I don't currently have access to the original emails. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 07 May 25 - 02:25 PM I HAVE A DOG HIS NAME IS FRITZ 2001. The TLP [Training Leadership Program] Hymnal MS-Word file. US Air Force training program songbook. pp.60-61. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 07 May 25 - 02:11 PM Rastus 1993. Transcribed from the The Sault Antler's Rasty Drinking Songs CD done by The Sault Antler's Men's Chorus. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 07 May 25 - 01:52 PM I KNOW A DOG WHOSE NAME IS ROVER c2000. NORTHALLERTON R.U.F.C. SONG BOOK. Compiled by CHRIS MARTIN. Retrieved April 23, 2004 from http://www.nrufc.com/images/songs.pdf |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 07 May 25 - 12:27 PM The related "Sally in the Garden" version ballad index entry.https://balladindex.org/Ballads/CSW067.html I am only familiar with this variant from rugby circles. No "Hog Eye" mentioned...
Sally in the GardenDESCRIPTION: Dance tune with chorus "Sally in the garden sifting sand/Sally upstairs with a hog-eyed man"; floating verses: "Chicken in the bread pan kicking up dough"; "Sally will your dog bite, no sir, no/Daddy cut his biter off a long time ago"AUTHOR: unknown EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (Cecil Sharp collection) KEYWORDS: sex dancing nonballad animal floatingverses FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,SE,So) REFERENCES (6 citations): Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook, p. 67, "Hog-eye" (1 text, 1 tune) Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 232, "Sal's in the Garden Sifting Sand" (1 fragment) Sharp-EnglishFolkSongsFromSouthernAppalachians 250, "The Hog-eyed Man" (1 fragment, 1 tune) Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 254-255, "Hogeye" (1 text) NorthCarolinaFolkloreJournal, James Ruchala, "'Sally Ann' and the Blue-Ridge String-band Tradition," Vol. LIV, No. 2 (Fall-Winter 2007), pp. 29-75, "Sally Ann" (fragments of text on pp. 32, 34, 35, 37, 53, 54, 61; tunes on pp. 66-70; most are just a few lines, often fiddlers' mnemonics; some are "hog-eye man" fragments; many might file with "Sally Anne" or "Sally in the Garden") ADDITIONAL: James P. Leary, Compiler and Annotator, _Wisconsin Folklore_ University of Wisconsin Press, 2009, article "Kentucky Folksong in Northern Wisconsin" by Asher E. Treat, pp. 247, "Sally in the Garden (1 short text, 1 tune, sung by Mrs. M. G. Jabobs) Roud #331 RECORDINGS: Theophilus Hoskins, "Hog Eyed Man" (AFS, 1937; on KMM) New Lost City Ramblers, "Hogeye" (on NLCR03) Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers, "Hog Eye" (Victor 21295, 1928) CROSS-REFERENCES: cf. "Roll the Boat Ashore (Hog-eye I)" (many floating verses) cf. "The Hog-Eye Man" (words) cf. "Granny Will Your Dog Bite?" (words, part of tune) NOTES [162 words]: This is part of a cluster that includes the bawdy song "The Hog-Eye Man," another Arkansas dance tune "Hogeye" ("Row the boat ashore with a hogeye, hogeye/Row the boat ashore with a hogeye man"), "Granny Will Your Dog Bite" and others. I've used the "Sally in the Garden" title to differentiate the dance tune from the bawdy song, even though they're clearly siblings. - PJS Paul in fact has strongly suggested merging "Sally in the Garden" and "Roll the Boat Ashore (Hog-eye I)." Roud appears to lump the two. There are verses floating freely between both, which means that fragments often cannot be identified with one or the other. Nonetheless, they appear to me to be different though related songs; the choruses are different, and if all the lyrics float, that is decisive. Still, one should check the cross-references to be sure to find all the versions. The mention of a tune from Arkansas is interesting, because Treat notes a town in Arkansas called "Hogeye." - RBW Last updated in version 6.1 File: CSW067 Go to the Ballad Search form Go to the Ballad Index Instructions The Ballad Index Copyright 2025 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 07 May 25 - 12:09 PM Ballad Index entry: https://balladindex.org/Ballads/RL401.html
Hog-Eye Man (I), TheDESCRIPTION: The Hog-Eye Man [read: "The Vagina-hungry Man"] meets Sally or Jenny or Molly who is lying in the grass or the sand and who does good service with him.AUTHOR: unknown EARLIEST DATE: 1922 KEYWORDS: bawdy shanty sex FOUND IN: US(Ap,So) REFERENCES (12 citations): Randolph/Legman-RollMeInYourArms I, pp. 401-404, "The Hog-Eye Man" (8 texts, 1 tune) Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, p. 104, "The Hog-Eye Man" (1 text, 1 tune) Harlow-ChantyingAboardAmericanShips, pp. 54-55, "The Hog-Eye Man" (1 text, 1 tune) Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 269-272, "The Hog-Eye Man" (3 texts & several fragments, 3 tunes) [AbEd, pp. 199-200] Sharp-EnglishFolkChanteys, V, p. 6, "The Hog-Eyed Man" (1 text, 1 tune) Kinsey-SongsOfTheSea, pp. 58-59, "Hog's-Eye Man" (1 text, 1 tune) Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, pp. 410-411, "The Hog-Eye Man" (1 fragment, 1 tune, evidently bowdlerized) Terry-TheShantyBook-Part1, "The Hog's-eye Man" (1 text, 1 tune) Browne-AlabamaFolkLyric 123, "As I Went Down to Mas' Cornfliel'" (2 fragments, 1 tune, too short to really identify and filed here mostly because one of the informants through it unsuitable for public performance) Bush-FSofCentralWestVirginiaVol5, pp. 17-18, "Sally Ann" (1 text, 1 tune) DT, HOGEYEMN* ADDITIONAL: Captain John Robinson, "Songs of the Chantey Man," a series published July-August 1917 in the periodical _The Bellman_ (Minneapolis, MN, 1906-1919). "The Ox-eyed Man" is in Part 4, 8/4/1917. Roud #331 CROSS-REFERENCES: cf. "Sally in the Garden" (the "clean" version of this piece) ALTERNATE TITLES: The Ox-Eye Man The Hogs-Eye Man The Hawks Eye Man Oh, Who's Been Here? NOTES [135 words]: Ed Cray explains "hog-eye man" as one deeply interested in sex. Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag explains a "hog-eye" as the barges that traveled from the Atlantic ports around Cape Horn to San Francisco. A "hog-eye man" would therefore be a crewmember of such a barge. Give the length of the voyage around the Horn in the 1850s, the two definitions may not be mutually exclusive. This overlaps very much with "Sally in the Garden" -- so much so that Roud lumps them, and it is often hard to tell which song a fragment goes with; better to check both. - RBW "Oh, Who's Been Here?" is quoted by Hugill, from a shanty which Cecil Sharp gave in the Journal of the Folk Song Society. Hugill only quotes one line, which has the same melody and very similar words as "Hog-Eye Man" though not the usual "Hog-eye" chorus. - SL Last updated in version 6.0 File: RL401 Go to the Ballad Search form Go to the Ballad Index Instructions The Ballad Index Copyright 2025 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 07 May 25 - 11:48 AM This song has two Roud numbers #331 and #10346 ("Mary in the kitchen punching duff..") Roud #331 also includes the opening line "Sal's in the garden siftin' sand.." and " Sally's in the garden with the hog-eyed man..." which match up with Roud 10346. Roud 331: https://archives.vwml.org/search/all:combined/0_50/all/score_desc/extended-roudNo_tr:331 Roud 10346: https://archives.vwml.org/search/all:combined/0_50/all/score_desc/extended-roudNo_tr:10346 |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Jack Horntip Date: 07 May 25 - 10:35 AM pig’s ass, in a, prep. phr., not at all; "Yes you 1942. Supplement to Rural Dialect of Grant County, Indiana, in the 'Nineties by William L McAtee. p.7. Privately published booklet. See here: https://archive.org/details/1945-to-c-1960-w-l-mcatee-and-his-printed-booklets/page/n3/mode/1up?q=pig%27s+eye |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 05 May 25 - 12:38 PM Here's a "hog's eye" that seems to euphemize a familiar, if crude, expression: Southern Standard (Arkadelphia, Ark.) (Oct. 26, 1871): "The ship of state is safely moored - in a hog's eye!" |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 03 Jan 24 - 11:43 AM More detail on singing "Hog Eye" at the end of the North Carolina Convention of 1868. Wyoming Democrat, 6 May 1868: 1. // Just prior to adjournment a “delegate” struck up “John Brown’s Body,” with great unction, lining out the song from a Freedman’s Bureau missionary hymn book. In joined the saints and up rose the chorus. At first the negroes in the gallery looked on in amaze, but pretty soon they too began to sing and the uproar grew tremendous. “Old John Brown” gave way to “Hail Columbia,” and that in turn to “O! say yeller gal can’t yer come out to-night,” and then all were swamped in the roaring air of “Hog Eye,” a favorite negro corn-shocking melody which begins “Sal’s in the garden siftin sand” and has for its second line a rhyme too indecent to repeat. Fired by this, the saints joined all hand round and executed a war dance to the chorus, “And a roly, sholy, bool, An a hog-eye, And a roly, sholy, bool, An a hog-eye. For Sal’s in de garden sifting sand,” &c. And thus did the North Carolina congressional redestruction “convention” disport itself in its closing hours. // |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 03 Jan 24 - 11:21 AM "Hog Eye" in a shipboard setting, in fiction. Note the early date. “Tricks That Are in Vain.” The Portland Daily Press [Portland ME], 5 September 1874: 4. // The good captain was in high glee over the result of his morning’s work, and as a relief to his feelings invited Jake [Pendergrast, the mate] down to another interview with the case bottle in the cabin, after which he broke forth into song in these words, (and no tune in particular): “Oh, a hog-eye ship and a hog-eye crew, And a hog-eye mate and a captain too, Oh, a railroad nigger and a hog-eye ma-a-a-n, All you want is a hog eye man.” This sentimental ballad he accompanied by a wild and uncouth dance of his own invention, and Mr. Pendergrast, catching the enthusiasm of the hour, joined in the chorus and patted his leg and stamped his foot to assist his superior officer in marking the time. // |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 03 Jan 24 - 11:18 AM An anti-Union parody of "Hog Eye" from the Confederacy. The Shreveport Semi-Weekly News, 3 June 1862: 4. “Lincoln’s ‘Hog Eye’ Dream.” AIR – “The Hog Eye.” One night Abe Lincoln had a dream, It was a mighty droll ‘un— He thought he saw Potomac’s stream With big black niggers rollin’. Chorus—Row a boat ashore, de hog eye Row a boat ashore, de hog eye Row a boat ashore! de hog eye Hurrah for Abram’s hog eye! [etc] |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 02 Jan 24 - 10:02 AM Probably unnecessary to say that if the paper's editor had any reason to suspect that the word "hogeye" might be indecent, he'd never have allowed it into print. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 02 Jan 24 - 03:05 AM Here's "hog eye" again in the context of a corn shucking song: "I can't get along with a hog-eye gal." Folsom, M. M. “A Corn-Shucking.” Kanabec County Times [Minnesota], 24 November 1887: 4. (It appears to be reprinted from the Chicago Tribune from at least a half-year earlier.) The description—here necessarily remembered, since corn shucking bees died out with slavery—is much like dozens of others. The narrator offers two songs in sequence before getting to this third example led by the captain (song-leader) while the shucking competition continued. "Jay bird died wid de whoopin’ cough, Sparrer died wid de colic; ‘Long come er frog wid a fiddle on ‘is back, ‘Quiring de way to de frolic. [refrain] O, can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye gal, An’ I can’t git erlong wid er hog eye. Ca’led Miss Sue to de ball las’ night, Sot ‘er down to suppah, She fainted ‘n’ ovah de table fell An’ stuck ‘er nose in the buttah. Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye gal, An’ I can’t git erlong wid er hog eye. Sont fo’ de doctah to fotch er to, An’ he wus sump’n latah, She stuck er tu’key bone ‘n’er eye, ‘N’ got choke to deaf on er tatah. Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye gal, An’ I can’t git erlong wid er hog eye. …The master of the house, and generally the ladies, and some of the neighboring planters would assemble at a little distance and enjoy the corn-shucking and the wild songs quite as much as the negroes." |
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