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'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?

12 Feb 05 - 06:16 PM (#1407602)
Subject: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)

In the "Handy Book of Play Party Games" there's a song that I'll put here from memory, as the book is at work and I'm at home:

Sent my brown jug down to town
Sent my brown jug down to town
Sent my brown jug down to town
Early in the morning.
Railroad, steamboat, ?? and canoe,
Lost my true love, oh what shall I do?
Oh she's gone, gone, gone,
Oh she's gone, gone, gone,
Oh she's gone on that raging canoe.

Any ideas what this is about?

Allison

12 Feb 05 - 06:20 PM (#1407607)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: greg stephens

That's "Railroad, steamboat, river and canal" I think you'll find

12 Feb 05 - 06:23 PM (#1407608)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: Peace

Square dance tune--don't gotta make sense.

12 Feb 05 - 06:24 PM (#1407609)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: greg stephens

Well, to be a little more precise. what we old English skifflers sang was:

Railroad steamboat river and canal
Yonder come a sucker and he stole my gal
And she's gone gone gone
And she's gone gone gone
And I'll give her my last farewell

13 Feb 05 - 01:50 AM (#1407942)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: GUEST

Check out the Okie version at Voices From the Dust Bowl

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query

13 Feb 05 - 03:44 AM (#1407978)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: masato sakurai

See also B.A. Botkin, The American Play-Party Song (1937; Frederick Ungar, 1963, pp. 230-232; "(Little) Brown Jug") for variants.

13 Feb 05 - 09:52 AM (#1408088)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: GUEST,Amos

You used to send your own vessels out for refilling (beer, and perhaps whiskey too.) A brown jug was a popular vessel for storing hard liquor in.

My guess.

A

13 Feb 05 - 12:42 PM (#1408190)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: Brían

I agree with Amos. Look at Rev Gary Davis'CANDYMAN:

Run and get the bucket,
get the baby some beer.

Brían

13 Feb 05 - 12:49 PM (#1408196)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: Brían

Try this: SENT MY BROWN JUG DOWNTOWN for Masato's link.

Brían

13 Feb 05 - 01:04 PM (#1408210)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)

Thanks. The recordings are very similar to the version I have at school, with interesting differences.
The next question that only I can answer: will my fifth graders enjoy it? Stay tuned!
Allison

13 Feb 05 - 01:45 PM (#1408252)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: John MacKenzie

I think they'd prefer the beer to the whisky, best to work your way up to whisky as you get older.
Giok

13 Feb 05 - 07:53 PM (#1408620)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: Brían

Thanks Masato for that site. I have been listening to a lot of Woody lately. I certainly don't wish to cast down any Sacred Cows, but I was a little suspicious he was drawing on secondary sources. It is really nice to see some other primary sources of voices from the Dust Bowl.

Brían

13 Feb 05 - 08:25 PM (#1408659)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: Goose Gander

Interesting that none of Woody's songs seem to have made it into the repertoires of those Okies, but then again Woody never exactly was an Okie, feeling quite at home in NYC. But yes, his songs do draw heavily from the Southwestern folk tradition. Here's what he wrote about his musical upbringing:

"I am pretty positive that my mother's father, Lee Tanner, was an Irishman, and that my Grandmother, Mrs. Lee Tanner, was Scottish. My mother learned all of the songs and ballads that her parents knew, and there were lots that were neither Scottish nor Irish, but Mexican, Spanish, and many made up by the Negroes in the South."

He goes on to talk about his father singing and playing blues and square dance tunes, and playing in cowboy bands. Even if we grant the fact that Woody freely embellished his story-telling to romanticize his life, this passage does suggest something of the varous hybridizing influences that have found their way into Southwestern folk music.

20 Mar 24 - 12:53 PM (#4199401)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: BenTraverse

It seems I have a knack for digging up old threads! I'm recording this song for my next album and have been digging into the history. My recording is based on Pete Seeger's from his album Frontier Ballads with an additional adapted verse. Here's what I have so far:

“Sent My Brown Jug Downtown", also simply called “(Little) Brown Jug" is a play-party first published in 1911 under the title “Bounce Around" by Mrs. L. D. Ames in her article “The Missouri Play-Party" (Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 24). According to Willis Goetzinger of Beaver, Beaver Co, OK in Benjamin Albert Botkin's 1937 book The American Play-Party Song, the game would be played by joining hands in a circle. The circle rotates to the left during the first stanza, switches to the right for the second stanza, and swings with a dance hold for the third stanza.

Many versions of this play-party have been collected across the United States with many variations in the chorus form, ranging from no chorus at all to dance instructions to the “raging canal" refrain used here. The verse melody is similar to other play-parties like “Skip to My Lou". The “raging canal" refrain, according to Prof. Kenneth C. Kaufman of the University of Oklahoma, is “an old college song" (ibid). However, no published sources are given for this claim. Botkin has the refrain categorized both as a part of “Little Brown Jug" (see D.) and as a The Play Party in Idaho" (Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 44, 1931), “Brown Jug" would often be followed by “General Price", “in which the women form the inner ring and the men the outer.

The play party is often linked to the 1869 minstrel song “The Little Brown Jug", written by Joseph Eastburn Winner. However, there is little similarity beyond the title. While sources don't ever list both versions as the same piece, they are often cross-referenced. Botkin does this in The American Play-Party Song, as does Vance Randolph in his article “The Ozark Play-Party" (Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 42, 1929), where he refers to the minstrel song as the “ordinary" version. Randolph continues by saying it may be linked to “Bounce Around",  but gives no throughlines for development so far from its proposed source material.

–––
I have a couple questions that I've not been able to answer:

The biggest one is the college song that Prof. Kaufman refers to. Is there a published version to point to? If so, is there more to the song than the one refrain?

Is there a more direct link between this song and Eastburn's composition?

Does anyone have access to the lyrics published in Marsh's Selection, or, Singing for the Millions pp.83-88?

Thanks for any help y'all can give! Hope my writeup is interesting :)

20 Mar 24 - 12:58 PM (#4199402)
Subject: RE: 'Sent my brown jug down to town'-why?
From: BenTraverse

Oh gosh, somehow my text copied over wrong!

...“Little Brown Jug" (see D.) and as a separate song.

According to Leona Ball's article, “The Play Party in Idaho"...