Lyr Req: Take Your Leg Off Mine

Subject: Lyr Req: Take Your Leg Off Mine
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 04:55 PM

Want lyrics to "Take Your Leg Off Mine" recorded on Fat City String Band CD, The Original.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Take Your Leg Off Mine
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 05:54 PM

We have one in the Digital Tradition called Big Legged Woman. It starts:

Raise up baby get your big leg off mine (repeat)
They're so heavy make a good man change his mind

Is that it?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: ADD: Baby, Take Your Leg Off Mine
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 06:02 PM

Then there's this one, from Randolph/Legman, Roll Me In Your Arms, Unprintable Ozark Folksongs and Folklore

BABY, TAKE YOUR LEG OFF MINE

Oh, rubber-tired buggy an' a rubber-tired hack,
Goin' to the graveyard to bring my baby back,
Ah, baby, take your leg off mine!

Went up Ellum, come down Main,
Beggin' for a dime to buy cocaine,
Ah, baby, take your leg off mine.

Went in the drugstore, store full of smoke,
Seen a sign hung up: There's No More Coke.
Ah, baby, take your leg off mine.

You keeps on a-talkin' till you makes me mad,
Talkin' 'bout the good cock you have had,
Ah, baby, take your leg off mine.

tune available upon request - after my nap.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Take Your Leg Off Mine
From: Peter Woodruff
Date: 17 Nov 03 - 09:09 PM

And there's another one by Tom Rush, "Big Fat Women." Big Fat woman get your fat leg off of me. Big fat woman get your fat leg off of me. Feels so good. Scare the hell out of me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Take Your Leg Off Mine
From: GUEST,Dave Wunsch
Date: 30 May 11 - 09:25 PM

I've never written to Mudcat before. I don't know how to do it, but I'm gonna try.

    A very good band from around Santa Cruz CA, called 'Little Black Train', has recorded a very good version (2011), on a CD also named "Little Black Train". Their version is called "Take Your Leg Off Mine". I understand the lyrics of this song were composed by Charlie Pool. I don't know if his band ever recorded the song. I have heard the song referred to as Charlie Pool's "stag" song, "Take Your.... The melody seems to be the same as "Take a Whiff On Me" or "Take a Drink On Me".
    Take a Whiff on Me has been recorded by Woody Guthrie and by Lead Belly. Both recordings are available from Amazon.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Take Your Leg Off Mine
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 06 Nov 14 - 09:29 PM

The version in the Randolph book was sung in 1942 by L. J. Farmington, who said he had learned it in about 1900.

It's similar to some versions of "Take A One On Me," such as the one Howard Odum collected by 1908 and the one Leadbelly knew ("main... cocaine").

It's also similar to the "Baby Take A Look At Me" that Gates Thomas said he heard before 1906:

"Went to the hop-point [sic, hop-joint], went in a lope;
Sign on the 'scription case, 'NO MORE DOPE.'
Ho, lo, Baby, take a look at me.
Old Crow Whiskey, Devil's Island Gin,
Doctor said it would kill him, but didn't tell him when.
Ho, lo, Baby, take a look at me.
Down to the river and back again,
Had a little money, but I blowed it in.
Ho, lo, Baby, take a look at me."

That's obviously related to John Hurt's "Hop Joint," which he remembered well he had learned in about 1901, and which was similar to the "I Went To The Hop Joint" that Dorothy Scarborough printed two versions of in the '20s. Hurt's refrain was "Oh my babe, why don't you come home," Scarborough 1 had "Oh baby darlin', why don't you come home," and Scarborough 2 had "Oho, my baby, take a-one on me." Scarborough 1 has the "hack[s]"/"back" rhyme (which Willie McTell used in "Delia," too), and it also has lyrics that tie in with "Boll Weevil" ("First time I saw him...").

It's kind of surprising that all of these songs typically had a 12-bar form except for the so-called "Take A One..." or "Take A Whiff...," which typically just had a progression similar to I-I-IV-IV-V-V-I-I -- in Leadbelly's and Mance Lipscomb's versions, for instance. Maybe someone just shortened the 12-bar form to get that. (If so, that would raise the question of whether that's where "Alabama Bound" got its chord progression too.)

Subject: Lyr Add: TAKE YOUR LEG OFF MINE (from Annie Lou)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Nov 14 - 12:38 PM

Annie Lou is the name of a string band headed up by Anne Louise Genest. This song is called "traditional" but it seems she has updated it quite a bit. You can hear it on Spotify.


TAKE YOUR LEG OFF MINE
As recorded by Annie Lou on "Grandma's Rules for Drinking" (2012)

1. Well I got a guy, lives in town,
Got nothin' but legs from the hips on down.

CHORUS: Hey, hey, honey, take your leg off mine.
Take your leg off mine, your leg off mine.
Ain't gonna tell you but one more time:
Hey, hey, honey, take your leg off mine.

2. Well, my good man is six-foot-four.
I give him half the bed but he wants it all.

3. Ah, now, honey, did you hear what I said?
I ain't gonna let you have the whole damn bed.

4. All your good lovin' don't make it right.
You toss and turn the whole damn night.

5. Well, I don't want to holler and I don't want to beg,
But come on, honey, move your leg!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Take Your Leg Off Mine
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 05:07 PM

Another "Hop Joint" variant, from 1905 (from E.C. Perrow):

"I went daown to the depot to get my baby's trunk;
I stuck my head in the bar-room door, en I lef' that city drunk.
My darling baby, why don't yer come home?
I went daown on the Bowery with a forty-four in my han';
I said, 'Look out, you roustabout! I'm looking fer my man.'
My darlin' baby, why don't yer come home?
I come back up the Bowery with a slug u' meat in my han';
I flung it thoo a winder en I hit a country man.
My darlin' baby, why don't yer come home?"

Hurt's version has a "forty-four" and "looking for my man." Sid Hemphill used virtually the same refrain as above in "The Carrier Line," which he said was from about 1903. "Looking for my man" in both Hurt and Perrow has obvious ties to "Frankie Baker" from 1899.