Baptist Sunday School words offensive?

Subject: ADD: De History Ob De World
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Dec 17 - 10:10 PM

Here's a very similar version from a book with the title The Up To Date Nigger Song Book

https://books.google.com/books?id=Ua5XAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA47

DE HISTORY OB DE WORLD
(Arranged by S. Contreso)

O, I come from ole Virginny,
Wid my head fill ob knowledge,
And I never went to free school,
Nor any other college.
But one ting I will tell you,
Which am a solemn fact,
I tell you how dis world was made
In a twinkling ob a crack.

CHORUS
Den walk in, den walk in I say,
Den walk in, and hear de banjo play.
Den walk into the parlour,
And hear de banjo ring;
And watch dis nigger's fingers,
While he plays upon de string.

Oh, dis world was made in six days,
And den dey made de sky.
And den dey hung it overhead
And left it dar to dry.
And den dey made de stars
Out ob nigger wenches' eyes,
For to gib a little light
When de moon didn't rise.

So Adam was de fust man,
Ebe she was de oder,
And Cain walk'd on de tread-mill,
Because he killed his broder;
Old modder Ebe,
Couldn't sleep widout a pillar,
And de greatest man dat eber lived
Was Jack de giant-killer.

And den dey made de sea,
And in it put a whale,
And den dey made a racoon,
Wid a ring around his tail;
All de oder animals
Was finished one by one
And stuck against the fence to-day
As fast as they were done.

O, lightning is a yellow gal,
She libs up in de clouds,
And thunder, he's a black man,
For he can hollow loud;
When he kisses lightning,
She dodges off in wonder,
Den he jumps, and tares his trousers,
And dat's what makes de thunder.

O, de wind begins to blow,
And de rain begins to fall,
And de water come so high,
Dat it drown'd de niggers all;
And it rained forty days and nights,
Exactly by the counting,
And it landed Noah's ark
'Pon the Alleghany mountains.

Subject: RE: Baptist Sunday School words offensive?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 15 Dec 17 - 05:47 PM

Joe: Just added my two bits to what was already posted in the linked song threads.

RE: Foster, I did that part from memory though. Oops. It used to be "Uncredited" but I see the online consensus is moving away from that. My copy is the same as in the Levy Collection which is still credited to Foster... for now. It's a tandem sheet with Old Unkle Ned on the "B-Side" as it were. Both were part of A.F. Winnemore's Jim Crow Jubilee that was supposed to have a proto-Oh Susanna in it as well.

Augustus Clapp's credit was usually "Arranged for the Piano Forte By..." Have never been able to find much background on him.

Subject: RE: Baptist Sunday School words offensive?
From: GUEST,Darth vade
Date: 16 Jun 18 - 01:12 PM

That’s so funny. I grew up in a Christian home, though not baptist, and my dad used the word raisins not razors. It never really made a lot of sense to me but the whole song is a little crazy any way. Now that I know the real title of the song I understand the whole hoopla.

Subject: RE: Baptist Sunday School words offensive?
From: GUEST,Joe_F (away from home}
Date: 16 Jun 18 - 03:27 PM

I first heard the song (the "darky" version) in an assembly at my (progressive, private) high school about 1952. The man who sang it was black, a teacher, a former minister, and of British origin. We did not consider "darky" (or "pickaninny", for that matter) offensive -- such words came across as affectionate slang, unlike "nigger", which everybody knew was a nasty word.

Subject: RE: Baptist Sunday School words offensive?
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Jun 18 - 03:50 PM

When I was a young girl in the late forties/early fifties, (W London) the word 'nigger' wasn't considered 'racist', merely the vernacular for black people. We had knitting wool in nigger brown, 'The Three Golliwogs' (story by Enid Blyton) were called Golly, Woggie and Nigger (!!!) and when I started riding lessons, my favourite pony was called Nigger.
But rather than change the words to racist-sounding songs, it's better just to avoid singing them in my view.

(In case anyone who doesn't know me thinks I'm a racist old biddy, I married my lovely Ivorian husband many years ago, and he's extremely black!)