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Subject: RE: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: raredance Date: 20 Feb 00 - 02:33 PM Since this thread last appeared, I have come across a couple other "old" versions of CEJ, although nothing to connect with minstrel shows. The first is from "Negro Folk Rhymes" by Thomas Talley. Talley was the son of ex-slaves and a chemistry professor at Fisk University in Nashville, TN. His original book was published in 1922. I have the 1991 edition annotated by Charles K Wolfe and expanded to include music transcriptions (Univ. Tennessee Press). Wolfe is/was an English professor at Middle Tennessee State University. Wolfe comments about CEJ: "Surviving today primarily as a popular western swing fiddle tune, the song has deep roots in black traditional lore. This version (i.e. Talley's) is apparently the earliest published...Versions of it also appear in White (i.e. "American Negro Folk-Songs" by Newman Ivey White, 1928) collected from black sources in 1915-16. For details of the song's history as a fiddle tune se Alan Jabbour, notes to "North American Fiddle Tunes" (these are the notes accompanying the Library of Congress LP recording, LCLP AFS 62. Any mudcatters have that one? -rr). In his manuscript of stories, "Negro Traditions", Talley includes a story entitled "Cotton Eyed Joe or The Origin of the Weeping Willow"; it includes a short stanza from the song, but more importantly details a bizarre of a well-known pre-Civil War Plantation musician, Cotton Eyed Joe, who plays a fiddle made from the coffin of his dead son." Note that Talley's lyrics have a lot in common with some of those published later by Lomax. Cotton Eyed Joe (from Thomas Talley) Hol' my fiddle an' hol' my bow, Whilst I knocks ole Cotton Eyed Joe. I'd a been dead some seben years ago, If I hadn't a danced dat Cotton Eyed Joe. Oh, it makes dem ladies love me so, W'en I comes 'roun' pickin' ole Cotton Eyed Joe! Yes, I'd a been married some forty years ago, If I hadn't stay'd 'roun' wid Cotton Eyed Joe. I hain't seed ole Joe, since was las' Fall; Dey say he's been sol' down to Guinea Gall. A different version of CEJ is found in Dorothy Scarborough's "On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs" (1925 Harvard Univ. Press; reprinted 1963 Folklore Associates). Scarborough is also the author the delightful book "A Song Catcher in Southern Mountains" (1937, Columbia Univ Press). She grew up in Texas and was active in Texas folklore societies and later became an English professor at Columbia University in New York. Her book on Negro folk songs is gentle and loving and at the same time rife with what I would consider racial stereotypes. She coaxed and cajoled songs and tunes from a lot of black southerners. The greatest obstacles being the inherent shyness of her sources along with an acquired religious piety in the sources that kept them from relating the old non-religious songs that they clearly still knew. She was also not totally rigorous in accepting material as she included some material that was second or third hand, sometimes from white sources who said they heard blacks singing it. Here is the lead-in to her Cotton Eyed Joe entry: "A less comely person of a different sex is celebrated or anathematized in another song, which seems to be fairly well known in the South, as parts of it have been sent in by various persons. According to the testimony of several people who remember events before the war, this is an authentic slavery-time song. The air and some of the words were given by my sister, Mrs. George Scarborough, as learned from the Negroes on a plantation in Texas, and other parts by an old man in Louisiana, who sang it to the same tune. He said he had known it from his earliest childhood and had heard the slaves sing it on the plantation. A version was also sent by a writer whose pen name is Virginia Stait." COTTON-EYED JOE (from Scarborough) Don't you remember, don't you know, Don't you remember Cotton-eyed Joe? Cotton-eyed Joe, Cotton-eyed Joe, What did make you treat me so? I'd 'a' been married forty year ago Ef it had n't a-been for Cotton-eyed Joe! Cotton-eyed Joe, Cotton-eyed Joe, He was de nig dat sarved me so,- Tuck my gal away fum me, Carried her off to Tennessee. I'd 'a' been married forty year ago Ef it had n't a-been for Cotton-eyed Joe! His teeth was out an' his nose was flat, His eyes was crossed, - but she did n't mind dat. Kase he was tall, and berry slim, An' so my gal she follered him. I'd 'a' been married forty year ago Ef it had n't a-been for Cotton-eyed Joe! She was de prettiest gal to be found Anywhar in de country round; Her lips was red an' her eyes was bright, Her skin was black but her teeth was white. I'd 'a' been married forty year ago Ef it had n't a-been for Cotton-eyed Joe! Dat gal, she sho' had all my love, An' swore fum me she'd never move, But Joe hoodooed her, don't you see, An' she run off wid him to Tennessee. I'd 'a' been married forty year ago Ef it had n't a-been for Cotton-eyed Joe! While I have no documentation to support it, I would throw out the possibility that the jilted lover scenarios exhibited here could in some way be connected to the more violent versions where all manner of mayhem is visited upon CEJ. The revenge for stealing the lover motif is not unknown in English and white American folk songs. rich r |
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Subject: RE: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: katlaughing Date: 20 Feb 00 - 05:22 PM Wow, rich r! Thanks for including all of that. It is very interesting. katlaughing |
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Subject: RE: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: BanjoRay Date: 20 Feb 00 - 06:36 PM I would have thought that if the DT words were racist Daddy wouldn't have had a man called cotton-eyed joe, he'd have had a BOY. Cheers Ray |
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Subject: RE: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 20 Feb 00 - 08:01 PM Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes - not Trachoma, conjunctivities, set off by the irritation from coal dust.
I reckon Dick Greenhaus has the rights of it, the DT version is floating verses arranged to make some kind of a story, just fillinmg in the space between the lovely chorus, which is what makes tyhe song. The chorus deserves a better set of verses to match the mood it sets up, and scattered along this thread there's the makings of this. But though they aren't the set of verses I'd choose if I was singing it, I can't see how the DT verses are racist, unless you assume that Daddy and Cotton-Eyed Joe are different colours, and that "had" implies ownership. > Though if that's the assumption kat made, I doubt she's alone, which would mean singing them would be likely to give offence to people you don't want to offend,and comfort to people you don't want to comfort.
But the crucial resons to avoid them would be that, by not singing them, you might upset the people who are always going around sneering, and talking about "PC carried to the point of madness", when what they are complaining about is someone showing a little common courtesy - and they deserve to be annoyed. |
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Subject: RE: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Mary in Kentucky Date: 20 Feb 00 - 10:35 PM I just learned last year from friends that are into clogging (this is Kentucky, folks...and yes Catspaw, we wear shoes when we clog) that various songs have set choreographies much like ballet. Cotton-eyed Joe is a standard that cloggers from different groups all seem to do the same way. Mary (who is wearing shoes) |
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Subject: RE: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Scotsbard Date: 21 Feb 00 - 02:01 PM The verses to Cotton Eyed Joe were often made up on the spot, according to a couple of old geezers who used to call square dances for us. Apparently they took great pride in "improving" the words each time, and would have to continue rapping out verses until either the fiddler or the dancers called it quits. I can see how some versions of the lyrics could be interpreted as having racial stereotypes, but neither of our callers (both of mixed heritage, btw) seemed to mind. The words are really secondary to the dance tune for this particular song. To me the music of that era became one of the tools of integration, and the words are part of our history. I hadn't thought of that slow Burl Ives version for years, but still wouldn't consider it politically incorrect. That modern line-dance routine and the "BS" call were invented back in the late '70s as country music's response to disco dancing. Gilley's was a wild place back then, you really had to be there to get the full flavor. We'd play CEJ for 10 minutes and then get requests for Harlem Shuffle (as if we were actually going to try that on banjo/fiddle, guitar and bass). Hearing CEJ sandwiched between songs like Boogie Fever and Brick House at a local disco wouldn't have been unusual in the early '80s (at least around here, anyway.) CEJ is just one of those timelessly good dance tunes. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: CapriUni Date: 09 Feb 02 - 08:19 PM (came here through a link answer to a new request for the history of this song...) Seems to me that whether this song is racist or not depends on who's singing it. The version from Scarborough, as written by slaves for slaves about slaves is not racist (and may in fact be among the earliest versions of "my gal done left me" blues). But if a white slave owner heard the song, and stuck in verses about beating and killing his slave as an 'amusement' (which, I agree with Katlaughing, seems to be what's happening in the song) than it is racist. Also, the did the verses Art Thieme posted:
"Load 'em and stack 'em
The river go up, strike anyone else as possibly referring to selling slaves, or is my brain being quirky? Anyway, this all raises the question of whether the version about the jilted lover and the beaten slave are really the same song... Yes, they have the same (or similiar) tune, and the same central figure. But how big of a role does intent play in a song's identity -- Both on the author/performer side and the audience side? I realize this question may lead to massive thread drift, but so be it... |
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Subject: RE: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Feb 02 - 09:38 PM CapriUni, this thread, with the exception of a few factual threads by Rich R, OTMurphy, Thieme, Stewie, etc., is loaded with nonsense. 1. Load 'em an' stack 'em: Anyone not paranoid would assume bales, barrels, etc. The normal loading of a boat at a river port (Thieme puts the town under water after a flood, a common occurrence in the old days). Shawneetown, Illinois, was one of many that got wiped out so often that it was moved. 2. Had a man: I have used this phrase all my life about having someone hired to do something, anything. I had a man clean my sidewalk a couple of days ago. (common language, stated by OTMurphy above) 3. The song reproduced from Scarborough indicates that Cotton-eyed Joe stole the singer's gal. The same story, pared down, is echoed in the version in the DT. I see absolutely nothing racist in it. If I had been Daddy and had a shotgun, I might well have made mincemeat out of Cotton-eyed Joe or any other salty dog hired hand that sweet-talked my wife. (Before WWI, consequences probably nil). 4. In Georgia, people with large whites to the eyes are called cotton-eyed. No disease or conjunctivitis required. This usage is fairly common, as pointed out in the quote from a dictionary of slang (Gargoyle). The song probably had a Negro origin, but, like all good tunes, was quickly adapted by whites. I have heard a Metís fiddle band play it. |
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Subject: RE: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Serena Date: 31 Aug 04 - 05:19 PM Hey guys, I'm from Italy and I'm writing my university graduation thesis about Country Music and old American fiddle-tunes...found your info VERY USEFUL, and wanted to thank you all!!! Love! Serena |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Sam Clements Date: 04 Oct 04 - 09:10 PM I've possibly found the earliest mention of "Cotton-eyed Joe" yet. 8 May, 1875 _Saturday Evening Post_ A fictional piece, wherin the young white heroine is singing this song while cooking with her Black nursemaid/cook. She says that the Black nursemaid taught her the song. The nursemaid says "hush. Don't sing that" knowing that the girl's mother wouldn't approve. The line she sings is "Don't you remember a long time ago, I dreamed that I ran away w/ Cotton-eyed Joe?" Later in the story she sings "Oh, I'd have been married twelve months ago, if it had not have been for Cotton-eyed Joe." Next, who comes to the door but her blue-eyed cousin, Joe. Later in the story, a character describes Joe as a person with "great white eyes." But, still later in the story, Joe is described again as having BLUE eyes. So, perhaps the song was originally put to words by African Americans, obviously prior to 1875. But whites certainly knew the words by 1875. I can't see any derogatory racial meanings here. The term could have reference to both persons with prominent whites of the eye, and also could refer to blue-eyed persons. Or both. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Tannywheeler Date: 05 Oct 04 - 01:22 PM It seems to me the verses A.T. (and CU) quoted would have more to do with people loading cargo to ship -- on a riverboat, perhaps -- to places along the river. These people could be any color, or condition of servitude. Tw |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 05 Oct 04 - 04:16 PM Cotton-eyed Joe as a fiddle piece seems to have arisen in the mid-1800s. Verses, often floaters, were attached and called to the dancers. Where and when these verses originated is difficult to determine. There is much speculation about racial content in some of the verses- some of them do but most of them don't. Many people seem unable to accept the song as a party and dance song used by both blacks and whites, but that is the case, since it occurs in the literature of both races (all verse references are 20th c, unless Guest Sam Clements find is proven). Which group, black or white, had it first? Impossible to tell without dated references. In the earliest printed usage, cotton-eyed is defined as having the whites of the eyes prominent. This is a characteristic that appears occasionally in both whites and blacks (sometimes activated by thyroid disorder), and when it does, people remember it. Some verses imply that Cotton-eyed Joe was a vagabond; a trouble-maker, here today and gone tomorrow. Guest Sam Clements, what is the exact reference to the story you quote? Title of story? Page numbers? Vol. and No.? It is an interesting find because of the date, which is earlier than any reference so far found. Not unlikely, however, since the fiddle tune's use in America seems to go back at least that far. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Scouse Date: 07 Oct 04 - 12:41 PM Doc Watson sang "Cotton Eyed Joe." on the sound track of the Film "Places in the Heart." As Aye, Phil |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 07 Oct 04 - 02:34 PM For an old time dance version, Fiddlin Johnny Carson and His Virginia Reelers on Honking Duck, a 1927 Okeh recording. Cotton Eyed Joe (www.honkingduck.com; click on 78s, then click on title and get alphabetic listings. I always find something new to me when I go through these listings) Honking Duck |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: penguin Date: 22 Nov 05 - 07:50 PM The "Cotten-eyed Joe" is so embedded in Texas culture that it is sung during the seventh inning stretch of a baseball game. When I first moved the Texas, it was the only song performed. Now both "Take me out the the Ballgame" and "Cotten-eyed Joe" are sung during the seventh inning stretch. So it is not a song confined to honky-tonks and country western venues and history. In past posts others have described the dance and song in Texas. It is performed as a line dance with each person putting their arms around each others waist and going around the dance floor. The caller says something like "what's that smell", the dancers kick forward and yell "bullshit". "Say it again" "Bullshit" and so on |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo Date: 23 Nov 05 - 01:26 PM This is all fascinating. It does seem that many songs had "filler" verses that just did quantum leaps from song to song (often with the resuls being even more inexplicable than [*HAPPY CENTENNIAL!*] relativity), and thus acquired many different variants. The "Chew Tabbacah/Soda Cracker" thread hereabouts is just another example. Some verses in the CEJ variants above are borrowed, it seems, in quite the same fashion. But CEJ is interesting in that it seems to have at least three distinct musical strains to it as well. I noted this back when I was doing my mornning folk music show at WWUH, and one morning played my "Cotton Eyed Joe" medley: a set consisting of quite different treatments of Cotton Eyed Joe. Been a while, but IIRC, I played Mike Seeger's CEJ from his "Fresh Oldtime String Band Music" (with the Agents of Terra), a quite different instrumentation and tempo of the "standard" tune, then played Tom Paxton's CEJ from "New Songs From The Briarpatch" with a different melody, then Michelle Shocked's quite interesting homage to CEJ from her "Arkansas Traveller". Don't remember if I put in the Red Clay Rambler's version from "Rambler". If you weren't paying attention, you might not notice they were all the "same" song. FWIW, I think this medley far more interesting than the medley I keep requesting when jamming: "Red Haired Boy/Little Beggarman/Gilderoy").... ;-) Here's a pretty big list of sources and performers and other info as well as the fine stuff folks have contributed above. The folk process is interesting ... but perhaps a bit maddening if you're an IP/copyright attorney.... Cheers, |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Bob Coltman Date: 23 Nov 05 - 05:49 PM Bob Wills did a great uptempo version with a very different tune. In it his line is "Daddy worked a man called Cotton-Eyed Joe." Now the man could well be black, but could as easily be white. "Worked a man" refers most directly either to a hired man, or to a tenant farmer, i.e. sharecropper -- not necessarily a slave. Given the time of probable origin (well after emancipation), I'd say the man was hired. The Talley and Scarborough versions, both very early, seem to confirm that this song began as a black song, the Talley version sung by blacks about blacks, the Scarborough bearing every sign of being from the white blackface minstrel stage -- which could never be accused of being gentle about black stereotypes. Likely the minstrels based it, like so many in their repertoire, on a black original. Still, nearly every later version seems more or less assimilated into the southern dance tradition, with words that are not particularly race-specific. Kat, I admit I was surprised when you and another poster found the "racist" version painful...or even distinctly racist. Am I just missing something here? Fiddlers commonly "whup hell" out of the fiddle; I'd say the reference there is to the tune, not the man. The possible reference to a back-alley murder in the last verse is real tenuous. The possibility that Mama and Cotton-Eyed Joe had an affair is implicit, maybe. There's very little mention of interracial sex in traditional songs, and I'm not sure this really is one. Again, Joe may be white. I'm working hard to pick out the pain and the racism, but somehow it just doesn't strike me that way. If it's there, and these aren't just random verses, it's a good deal less obvious, certainly, than a good few other songs that are more overt. I think you took this song to be essentially a narrative, like a ballad, and I just think it's a lot less story-oriented than that. What do you think? |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 23 Nov 05 - 09:33 PM The earliest dated mention of Cotton-eyed Joe I have found is in Perrow, a song from the MS of Dr. Harrington, 1909, collected from Mississippi Negroes. Ef it hadn't been fer dat Cottoneye Joe, Mought er been married six er seben year ago. E. C. Perrow, "Songs and Rhymes from the South, 1915, part VIII, no. 81, Jour. American Folklore, vol. 28. Scarborough's notes suggest that it could go back to slavery times. It does seem to be a Black song. Common slang usage, as stated here or in another thread, defines cotton-eyed as having the whitea of the eye prominent (J. E. Lighter, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, vol. 1). Nothing suggests a white man is involved, and I see nothing to support racist interpretations. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Scott & Hollie Date: 24 Nov 05 - 04:31 PM I think cotton eye joe, is a man called Joe, who has a cotton eye. he goes to alot of pubs in Cattemajo and dances alot, doin the 1 eye gallop shuffle. He is a cross btween a pirate an a mexican.. i think? pirates have patches.. he has a cotton eye? hmm same thing rly enit?! lol aight thnks for listenin n gd nite.. lol!... |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: CapriUni Date: 27 Jan 06 - 06:11 PM Just checked out the song in the DT... wanted to download the midi, so I could write new words to the tune... But the tune file attached to the lyrics on that page is all slow and mournful, and there are far too few syllables, to my ear... I think the links may have gotten mixed up. Just giving a heads up. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Texas Girl Date: 06 Apr 06 - 07:07 PM For as long as I can remember the cotton eyed joe was played, sung and danced at every Texas occasion with out fail. There are many versions and many different lyrics. The song is so much a part of the soul of Texas. If your going to play in Texas you gotta have a fiddle in the band.Another name for cotton eyed joe is The Best Ole Fiddle. My fiddles made of wood. Your's is the best ole fiddle excepting mine. My fiddles made of pine. Cornstalk bow. Cotton Eyed Joe is discribled as ugly but lean and tall. No teeth and flat nose. Cross eyed. To very good looking. He came to town like a midwinter storm He rode through the fields so Handsome and strong His eyes was his tools and his smile was his gun But all he had come for was having some fun Could it be that the cotton eyed joe came from several different sources. From the Texas and Louisiana plantations where the Negro slaves sang the song while picking cotton as discribed by Scarborough and also from Scotts. Many Scotts married Native Americans and Negroes such as the Cherokee who also owned plantation and also Negro slaves. When the Cherokee/Scottish mixed were forced off their land on the eastern coast and sent on the trail of tears they took their black slaves with them to Oklahoma and Texas. The slaves became part of the tribe and were discribed as Black Cherokees. Many mixed Cherokee (black hair but green and blue eyes) left the east coast prior to the Trail Of Tears and started over in Texas. They blended with society. The way the song is danced to will remind one of both cherokee and Scottish dances. Old tunes from the old country were often blended with both Native American and American Negro songs. My great uncle made fiddles for many years. From cherry wood, pine well whatever wood he could find and yes his favorite tune was cotton eyed joe.Yes he was Cherokee and Scottish. I can remember as a little girl watching him tap his foot on the old wood floor as he tried out his newest fiddle. Every fiddle played Cotton Eyed Joe before it's new owner came to pick it up. Every type of payment was made for the fiddles. Horses, cows and pigs. Tobacco, grain, sugar, corn flour or material for my great aunt a new dress, whatever he needed at the time he would except as a payment for his work. Once he stated that the musician came all the way from Tennesse to pick up that cherry wood. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Azizi Date: 07 Apr 06 - 02:08 PM Thanks for sharing this information and your personal experiences with Black Indians. For more information on this subject, those interested may want to read the William Loren Katz's book Black Indians |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Goose Gander Date: 15 Jun 06 - 08:46 PM I too have long assumed 'Cotton-Eyed Joe' was derived from minstrelsy, but are there any nineteenth-century prints of the lyrics in any form? What about sheet music? Any solid evidence it was ever a staple of the minstrel stage? |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 15 Jun 06 - 10:49 PM 'Cotton-eyed' as a descriptive adjective for having the whites of the eyes prominent was first noted in print in "Dialect Notes," 1905; older references are anecdotal. Gargoyle noted this way back in 19 and 99 in this thread, and correctly identified the subject of the song as seduction. Dorothy Scarborough, in "On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs" (1925) received anecdotal evidence that the song was sung by slaves on plantations in Texas and Louisiana. Since these sources were multiple, chances are good that it actually is an African-American party song from the 19th c. In threads above is the excellent version collected by Scarborough as well as one from Talley, "Negro Folk Rhymes." N. I. White collected fragments from Blacks in Alabama in 1915-1916. The song has not been found in minstrel routines as far as I can determine. The party song has persisted among whites as a fiddle tune (multiple recordings in the 1920's), but with lyrics that no longer tell a complete story. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 16 Jun 06 - 01:40 PM The post by Guest Sam Clements, 04 Oct 04, seems to support the African-American origin of the song, and dates the song back at least to 1875. I had forgotton this post. I would like to verify the Sat. Eve. Post reference, but haven't got a copy yet. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Goose Gander Date: 16 Jun 06 - 07:26 PM Where did you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe? Talley's 'The Origin of Negro Traditions' (1942-43, published in two parts in the journal Phylon) has some very interesting speculations about the origin and meaning of Cotton-Eyed Joe. Referring first to anthropological discoveries in an Alabama cave in 1842, he cites a report of "eight or ten wooden coffins of black and white walnut, hollowed or cut out of the solid in the fashion of a 'dugout' canoe." (p. 375, part one). He further notes that the song includes "the statement that Cotton-Eyed Joe's child was buried in a coffin made by hollowing out the log from a trunk of a tree." He traces this practice back to the Bronze Age. "To make a long story short," he writes, "the tradition of Cotton-Eyed Joe appears to have originated in some form away back in the Bronze Age of prehistoric times and to have traveled down through the ages to the early seventies in the last century (nineteenth century) when I heard it as a mere child after its multitudinous revisions and recastings extending over thousands and possibly over millions of years." (p. 31, part two) Whew. That's quite a theory to build upon a few lines in a song and a discovery in a cave (which seems almost certainly to have been Native American in origin). But Talley's childhood memories (if accurate) do place the song in the 1870s, at least. More recently, Robert Winans in "Black Instrumental Music Traditions in the Ex-Slave Narratives" (Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), p.43-53) listed Cotton-Eyed Joe among "the most frequently rememembered dance tunes and songs played on instruments" mentioned in the WPA ex-slave narratives collected in the 1930s. (P.51-52). This provides further evidence dating the song (instrumentally at least) to the antebellum era in the American South. Also, for what it's worth, historian Grady McWhiney (certainly no musicologist) wrote in his book Cracker Culture (Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1988) that Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains identified Cotton-Eyed Joe as an Irish song upon first hearing it in North America. Judging from previous posts, some folks seem to think the tune is Scottish in origin, and there may well be some connection to the British Isles. But to return to my original question, I can't find anything that specifically connects Cotton-Eyed Joe to the stage, whether minstrel, vaudeville, medicine show, what have you. When you consider how many different prints and parodies there are of popular minstrel songs such as Jordan Am A Hard Road, Old Dan Tucker, Root Hog or Die, etc., I would certainly expect to have found something. I'll feel pretty dumb if someone goes and posts some commericially printed lyrics circa 1800s, but it seems safe to say that Cotton-Eyed Joe is not directly connected to blackface minstrelsy. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 16 Jun 06 - 08:14 PM The post by Morris pretty well sums up the status of our knowledge. Certainly the tale of seduction found by Scarborough, White, Talley and others doesn't appear in any of the minstrel routines that I have found so far. I don't know where he published it or if it is in his papers at Fisk, but Talley "details a bizarre tale of a well-known pre-Civil War plantation musician, Cotton Eyed Joe, who plays a fiddle made from the coffin of his dead son" ("Negro Folk Rhymes," 1922 (1949), p. 27-28). If anyone has the original reference, I would like to hear more of it. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Kegan Date: 01 Jul 06 - 05:24 AM Wow... I read the whole damn thing LOL. Let's not forget Walter Brennan's narrative version, nor the '90s version by the Rednex... I have a version by some Cajun band, a stanza runs: "I'da been married a long time ago If it had'nt a-been for the cotton-eyed Joe Where didja go, now what didja do? Where didja go...cotton-eyed Joe? Now what do we say? Crawfish! Whadda we say? Aw, crawfish What do we say? Crawfish! And away we go with the cotton-eye Joe" I LOVE IT! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,noel C Date: 04 Sep 06 - 11:38 AM A friend of mine was playing fiddle with Hank thompson I believe and was in a bar somwhere in Texas. There was a group of bar hopper that kept wanting to hear the cotton eyed joe. He got ticked because they kept wanting to hear it. So habk T started to ask him questions like in the song and he answered bull shit. that's how the BS vertion of cotton eyed joe got started. just in case anyone wanted to know. He also wrote the song pop a top and very many of Hank Thompsons hits. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,50yearspicking banjer Date: 14 Dec 06 - 11:05 PM listing to the skillit lickers singing (cotton eyed joe) i think he was a horse or a mule,he was to busy following the durn mule even to get married,love the music |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Scoville Date: 15 Dec 06 - 09:31 AM Good grief--EVERYONE plays this tune. I've got so many versions of it just in the recordings I own, I can't even believe it. Actually, the Bob Wills one I have is pretty nice--not as rip-roaring fast as the old-time ones and has a nice a melodic variation. Don't you remember, don't you know? Daddy worked a man called Cotton-Eyed Joe, Daddy worked a man called Cotton-Eyed Joe. Chorus (repeated after each verse): Had not a-been for Cotton-Eyed Joe, I'd 'a' been married a long time ago, I'd 'a' been married a long time ago. Down in the cotton-patch, down below, Everybody's singing the Cotton-Eyed Joe, Everybody's singing the Cotton-Eyed Joe. I know a gal lives down below, I used to go to see her but I don't no more, I used to go to see her but I don't no more. Tune my fiddle and I rosin my bow, Gonna make music everywhere I go, Gonna play a tune they call "Cotton-Eyed Joe". And the Freight Hoppers recorded a fast version with the verses, most of which are floating: Well, run to the window, run to the door, And I ain't seen nothing but the Cotton-Eyed Joe, I ain't seen nothing but the Cotton-Eyed Joe. Chorus: Where'd you come from, where'd you go? Where'd you come from, Cotton-Eyed Joe. Sitting in the window singing to my love, . . .like a bell from the window up above, Mule ate a grasshopper eating ice cream, Mule got sick so they laid him on a beam. Well, down in the henhouse on my knees, I thought I heard a chicken sneeze, He sneezed so loud with a whoop and cough, He sneezed his head and tail right off. So, Cotton-Eyed Joe, he had a wooden leg, Leg wasn't nothing but a little wooden peg, One shoe off and one shoe on, He could do a double-shuffle till the cows come home. [Don't sing first time around] If it had not 'a' been for the Cotton-Eyed Joe, I'd 'a' been married twenty years ago. [Don't sing first time around] So, eighteen, nineteen, twenty years ago, Papa worked a man called Cotton-Eyed Joe, |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Scoville Date: 15 Dec 06 - 09:33 AM Which, I was going to say, "worked a man" goes along with the idea of "had a man" as in a hired man, not an owned man. But then I've very commonly heard the phrase "had a man" to mean a hired hand; I've seen it in older writings and it's still in use now, at least in this part of the country. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,john brandon sterling jared Date: 06 Jan 07 - 07:54 PM i think this song is about ghnorrea!!!!!!! |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,cfizzle Date: 26 Jan 07 - 02:25 PM thank you for your help. i feel educated |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Arkie Date: 26 Jan 07 - 11:21 PM This is certainly an example of a song that has survived a long time in many different forms because it holds some appeal and not because of popular recordings. I think that the main reason for the appeal is the tune and almost anything can be thrown in for a verse. If the term "cotton eyed" ever had wide usuage there seems to be no record of it. From the version I learned from Albert it seemed like Joe may have had problems with vision, and someone had to stay home and look after him. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 26 Jan 07 - 11:36 PM 'cotton-eyed' appeared in "Dialect Notes" in 1905. Southern provenance. Steinbeck used it in his novel, "East of Eden," 1952. I have heard it off and on in both south and west. Defined as having the whites of the eyes prominent. (Posted before, I think this thread). Reference- J. E. Lighter, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, vol. 1, p. 491. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,tomtom1942 Date: 03 Feb 07 - 08:59 PM About 1950 someone gave my aunt a old Victrolla with a stack of 78's. One of the songs was "Cotton eyed Joe" and the lyrics went something like this: Way down south where the cotton grows high, 'ol (something,something)is quite a guy, when he picks cotton, his eyes do shine, dats why they call him cotton eyed joe. Then the words:where did you come from, where did you go, etc I have no idea who recorded this or when |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,chloe Date: 04 Feb 07 - 09:08 AM wat r the dance moves to the cotton eyed joe song i need them for my p.e lesson we r doin dancin |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Duke Date: 04 Feb 07 - 09:48 AM I know the same version as Balladeer and I learned it from the same person (Doug Bush) that she did. He was an amazing musician and I wish I had not lost touch with him over the years. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Azizi Date: 04 Feb 07 - 03:24 PM Hello GUEST,chloe! From reading a version of "Cotton Eye Joe" that I have from 1922 {Thomas W. Talley "Negro Folk Rhymes"} my guess is that the individual dance steps that were done would have names that are no longer familiar to people nowadays. But it seems that the dances were performed with onlookers standing around in a circle watching couples {man/woman} dance together. In a couple of songs there are references to swinging your partner and wheeling and turning. Some instrumental tunes and songs became associated with certain movements {dance steps} and so people would say that they were dancing "Cotton Eyed Joe". But I would imagine that the dance steps could be used for other tunes and songs too, just like today with the "Chicken Noodle Soup" song and its dance movements. Or since many of these 19th century dances had a person who called out which movements people would do, maybe it would be closer to say that "Cotton Eye Joe" was more like the instructional dance songs & social dances such as the dancehall reggae song "Pon Di River (Pon Di Bank)" by Elephant Man. Maybe the dances that people did way back when were something like USA square dances or country dances. If you can get YouTube, click on this video for an example of a square dance done to the song "Jingle Bell Rock". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=memvr99utdc Best wishes, Azizi Btw, if anyone here knows any more about what Chloe is asking, I'd love to learn more about this and I don't mind being corrected. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Feb 07 - 04:54 PM Some seventeen versions of Cotton-eyed Joe at Bluegrass Messengers: Bluegrass (I think square dancers, following the orders of a 'caller' while the fiddle band is doing its stuff, can dance to it. This is something I have stayed away from, so no help here- only mis-direction) |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Wordsmith Date: 09 Feb 07 - 01:08 AM This is quite a thread. I must admit I never paid attention to most of the words of the version I heard which had to be more recent, maybe the Rednex version, because I was too busy laughing while stumbling over my feet trying to learn the line dance my friends were teaching me. I found the melody to be quite pleasant, but fast. Wish I'd paid more attention, but from what I've read from top to bottom, I'd have to agree that someone got jilted (because his gal ran off with Cotton Eyed Joe) or at the very least dumped because of him. I never knew it was such an old song. Thanks for the history lesson. I loved it. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Mizu Date: 03 Mar 07 - 06:09 PM I'm sure this has already been thrown out there but... I found the most simplestic answer to be that (ruling out the racism) Joe was a "worker" and his "boss" made him dance for entertainment. Well... He became a good dancer and all the women loved him... The "boss" proposed to a woman with a diamond ring but she did not love him beacuse he was an... An ass to his "workers" and she ended up running of with him, hince the lyrics "If it haden't been for Cotton-Eyed Joe then I'd be married a long time ago". Uh... Yeah... |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Tary Morris Date: 15 Apr 07 - 10:20 PM My dad was a square dance caller back in the 70's and early 80's and this song was what was called a "Round Dance", similar to line dances in clubs. I dont recall any racism in the words that my dad used, and sometime he would just let the record play with no words. I know this doesnt help anyone in the research of this song but it has been fun to read the threads. BTW does anyone know where i can get an intrumental version of this song. Preferably folk sound Rednex version is good but the old tune sounds so great!! Thanks, Tary |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:42 AM A great old tune it is. People like to read more into a song than is there. A particular failing here at Mudcat. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Goose Gander Date: 16 Apr 07 - 02:50 PM Here's a few recordings from American Memory . . . . Cotton Eyed Joe performed by the King Family at Visalia FSA Camp, 2-9-41 Source: Voices From the Dust Bowl Cotton Eyed Joe Cotton Eyed Joe Both performed by Elmo Newcomer near Pipe Creek, Bandera County, Texas, 5-3-39 Source: John and Ruby Lomax Southern States Recording Trip |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Goose Gander Date: 16 Apr 07 - 03:28 PM Cotton Eyed Joe Lyrics as sung by King Family in Visalia, 1941. Where did you come from Where did you go Where did you come from Cotton Eyed Joe? I come from the city I come for to show Come from a place Called cotton Eyed Joe Cotton Eyed Joe had a new suit of clothes Nobody knows where he got them clothes Went to the country Went to the show Stuffed my gut Full of sweet cake dough Cotton Eyed Joe had a new suit of clothes Nobody knows where he got them clothes And here's the Ballad Index entry . . . Cotton-Eyed Joe DESCRIPTION: "If it hadn't been for Cotton-eyed Joe, I'd have been married a long time ago." "Where did you come from, where did you go...." Stanzas describe country life, fiddle playing, and attempts to outshine Cotton-eyed Joe AUTHOR: unknown EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, Dyke's Magic City Trio) KEYWORDS: fiddle music nonballad FOUND IN: US(SE) REFERENCES (5 citations): BrownIII 104, "Page's Train Run So Fast" (1 text) Scarborough-NegroFS, pp. 69-70, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (1 text, 1 tune) Lomax-ABFS, pp. 262-263, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (1 text, 1 tune) Silber-FSWB, p. 35, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (1 text) DT, COTTNEYE* Roud #942 RECORDINGS: Arthur "Brother-in-Law" Armstrong, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (AFS 3979 B2, 1940) Granville Bowlen, "Cotton Eyed Joe" [instrumental] (on MMOK, MMOKCD) Fiddlin' John Carson, "Cotton Eyed Joe" (OKeh 45122, 1927) Carter Brothers and Son, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (Vocalion 5349, 1929; on GoingDown) Dyke's Magic City Trio, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (Brunswick 120, 1927) Spud Gravely & Glen Smith, "Cotton Eye Joe" (on HalfCen1) New Lost City Ramblers, "Cotton-Eye Joe" (on NLCR10) Elmo Newcomer, "Cotton Eyed Joe" (Cromart 101, n.d. but prob. mid-1930s) Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (Victor 21469, 1928) Bookmiller Shannon, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (on LomaxCD1707) Gid Tanner & his Skillet Lickers, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (Columbia 15283-D, 1928) Art Thieme, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (on Thieme03) Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys, "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (Columbia 37212, c. 1947) Notes: Primarily a fiddle tune, with the sort of chaotic words one would expect of such a piece. I assume "Cotton-Eyed Joe" stands for something, but I've never heard an explanation. - RBW It's been suggested that Cotton-Eyed Joe was a local character who was blind due to cataracts or another eye disease such as trachoma. - PJS |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: Leadfingers Date: 25 Apr 07 - 03:49 AM As Q said , there are too many people looking for all sorts of interpretations of lyrics . Some of us have even less reason for posting ! Mine is :- |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: open mike Date: 25 Apr 07 - 11:59 AM there is a link to a recording of this sung by Dodie Kallick in the 1960's posted by BK Lick (Dodie's husband, if i am not mistaken, in her obit thread--April 2007) |
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Subject: RE: Origins: Cotton-eyed Joe-true story/composite? From: GUEST,Michelle MAC Date: 05 May 07 - 11:35 PM Its about an STD he cought from some of the girls they all were shareing now he can't get married because he's got the drips sometimes |
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