Lyr Req: Salty Dog Rag

Subject: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From:
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 09:56 AM

Looking for lyrics to "Salty Dog Blues" or "Salty Dog Rag", (unsure of the title, but not "....Honey, let me be your salty dog." Thanks for your help. Catherine

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Steve
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 10:57 AM

Catherine, you may want to check the lyrics to 'Candy Man', it has the salty dog phrase repeated numerous times.

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 11:12 AM

Catherine,

At the top right of this screen is the DigiTrad database. Type in Salty Dog Blues and hit enter and it will bring up the lyrics. I would have copied them over, but figured I would walk you through this one as it's a great lyrics source and you should get used to it.

Steve

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 11:47 AM

The chorus goes:
Salty dog, salty dog,
I just want to be your salty dog,
Honey let me be your salty dog.
If I can't be your salty dog
I don't want to be your man at all,
Honey let me be your salty dog.

That's all I know... except: might it be a Jessie Fuller song?

Steve

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 07:25 PM

Although I am not named Steve, I thought I'd reply to this thread. Steve Latimer steered you straight. If you followed his advice you found this song.

Enjoy the music!

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Ferrara
Date: 18 Feb 99 - 10:58 PM

I don't think the song linked to above it the one Catherine was asking for. She said she doesn't want the one that goes "Honey Let Me Be Your Salty Dog."

While I was in high school/college (circa 1964) I often square danced to a tune called Salty Dog Rag, which was different (both words and tune) from the one given above. It had a little more of a pop tune feel, I think, and less bluegrass or old-timey.

Sorry, Catherine, right now neither the tune nor the words will come back to me. But I heard it before I heard "Salty Dog Blues" and if anything comes back I'll let you know.

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Ferrara
Date: 19 Feb 99 - 05:02 PM

The following Web sites courtesy of Bill D, my spouse, who told me to search for salty.dog.rag (not salty.dog) via AltaVista. Sorry, I don't know how to put in a direct link, and Bill is busy turning wooden bowls.

1. "...The lyrics - the dog - the dance - the drink..." The lyrics at this site are well done. They agree with the recorded version in Site 2:

http://www.wco.com/~jbrux/bbrux/html/salty_dog.htm

2. Lyrics on following site are full of typos and other mistakes, but it has a full audio clip of the record. Warning: this page is BIG (1.37MB). It starts playing the audio before it finishes loading it.

http://people.delphi.com/thereis/saltydog.html

3. This last site actually has the square dance steps:

http://members.aol.com/ldarchives/salty_dog_rag.htm

I'm so glad you asked for this. Hadn't heard it since around 1964. During high school and college years, my sister and I sang & played in hospital wards. Favorites, folk, etc. The Red Cross said they had a special need: a man named Gene (last name long forgotten) had given his time every Monday night for eighteen years to call square dances for servicemen recovering from psychiatric problems. Would we bring some of our friends to be square dance partners? Of course we did. "The Salty Dog Rag" was a favorite. At least one patient asked to be re-admitted long enough to thank us and say how much the dancing helped his recovery.

Another nice thing came from those dances: Gene asked me to partner him in an exhibition square with the Ralph Case dancers. So I got to take part in one of the early National Folk Festivals. Good memories. Thanks.

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From:
Date: 19 Feb 99 - 08:13 PM

This is one of those songs, I believe, that has as many versions as there are singers. I have four different renditions including Flatt&Scruggs and Ricky Nelson from the mid '60s. I think (therefore I am)Bill Monroe has recorded it, too. But they all have the same basic chorus, "Let me be your Salty Dog/Or I won't be your man at all./Honey let me be your Salty Dog." Only the verses have been changed to protect the innocent, or to reflect the times or the performer's interest.--John (not Jon)

Subject: Lyr Add: SALTY DOG RAG (Ed Crowe, John Gordy)
From: Ferrara
Date: 19 Feb 99 - 10:04 PM

Salty Dog Blues is a great song, but somehow I keep waiting for someone to say, "I get it now -- there are two salty dog songs, and she's looking for the other one." Actually there may be more than two I suppose....

Here are the live links (I hope):

For the Words

For the Recording

For the Dance Steps

For the curious, here are the words to the version of "Salty Dog Rag" that is used for square dancing. All I know about it is that it was around in 1959.

SALTY DOG RAG

Away down yonder in the state of Arkansas
Where my great-grandpa met my great-grandma
They drink apple cider and they get on a jag,
And they dance all night to the Salty Dog Rag.
They play an old fiddle like you never heard before,
They play the only tune that they ever did know-
It's a ragtime ditty and the rhythm don't drag,
Now here's the way you dance to the Salty Dog Rag.

CHORUS:
One foot front, drag it back,
Then you start to ball the jack.
You shake and you break and then you sag.
If your partner zigs, you're supposed to zag.
Your heart is light, you tap your feet
In rhythm with that ragtime beat.
(Just) pack up your troubles in your old kit bag
And dance all night to the Salty Dog Rag.

Away down South 'neath the old Southern moon,
The possum's up a tree and the hounds've treed a coon
They'll hitch up the buggy to a broken-down nag
And go out dancing to the Salty Dog Rag.
They tune up the fiddle and they rosin up the bow.
They strike a C chord on the old banjo
Then holler hang on 'cause we ain't gonna drag.
Now here's the way you dance to the Salty Dog Rag.
(CHORUS - Repeated twice)

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Catherine
Date: 22 Feb 99 - 07:25 PM

Yes, Ferrara, I am looking for the OTHER 'Salty Dog Rag", not 'Salty Dog Blues'. I will follow your links. My father has been searching for the lyrics/music. Says he last heard it 1952/53. Thanks to all for your assistance and directions around this site. Catherine

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: GUEST,Joe "The Missing Link" Lindquist
Date: 29 May 00 - 08:51 PM

The song recorded by Red Foley in or around 1953 was a modern takeoff on a dance that had been around for decades. It was most likely danced to the song "Salty Dog" which was one of the early jazz-and-blues players' favorites. Vernon and Irene Castle "dumbed down" the dance in or about 1915 so that it would be accessible to the dancing public; this version became the Castle Schottische, which is still encountered occasionally in vintage dance circles. Perhaps the most intricate version of the dance now known as Salty Dog Rag was to be found in New Haven, Connecticut, where the local folk dance group (early '90's) threw in numerous swing-shag-Charleston conbinations, not to mentiion a triple pirouette! Numerous alternate versions of the lyrics abound. Neither the music nor the words as sung by Red Foley have ever been published!!!

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 30 May 00 - 04:38 AM

"Swing-shag-Charleston"?! No wonder the Castles had to dumb it down! Or does the s-word mean something different over there from what it does on this side of the pond?

Steve

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Gary T
Date: 30 May 00 - 10:14 AM

Steve Parkes, you guessed it "shag" in the U.S. is not the same as in the U.K. In the context in this thread, it is a dance, 1960's era I believe, that was regionally popular. It is also used to name a type of haircut and a type of carpet, in both cases apparently related to "shaggy", meaning essentially "long, stringy, and unkempt". It does not register in the American psyche as a nasty word, and is probably hardly ever used here as such, although a fair number of us are aware of its meaning overseas (many only because of the Austin Powers film title).

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: bobby's girl
Date: 30 May 00 - 01:38 PM

I'm afraid the only context I've ever come across the tune was as a brilliant ceilidh dance called by Chris of "Melons for Ecstasy" band fame a few years ago. Sadly no-one seems to call it any more.

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: GUEST,Joe "The Missing Link" Lindquist
Date: 04 Jun 00 - 10:21 PM

The dance referred to as "Shag" actually exists in three different versions. The Original Shag, from the mid-20's, was a rapidly jumping and kicking dance that is probably more similar to step aerobics than to anything done today as a social dance. The approximately contemporaneous St. Louis Shag, named for the city in which it originated, was a cross between the Original Shag and the Charleston. It is a great deal of fun, and easier than either of its parent dances. The more recent Carolina Shag bears a close resemblance to West Coast Swing, which has largely replaced it in swing dance circles, save that the Carolina dance was quicker and featured some fancy footwork, particularly for the gent.

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 12:50 PM

The Red Foley version of the song came out on 78 rpm ; I don't know the exact year. The flip side was "Milk Bucket Boogie."

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 10:23 AM

Captain Swing play this for a rather unique dance - rarely seen from other bands/callers. What I calls the knocked-kneed dance. Never seen the words before. Zigging and Zagging is part of it but it sure ain't exactly wot is in the lyrics.

Subject: RE: Salty Dog Blues/Rag
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 01:27 PM

More salty dogs in thread 44023: Salty Dog

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Salty Dog Rag
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 05:24 PM

The Red Foley version is on YouTube: clicky

With dancers: clicky2

~ Becky in Long Beach