Thread #100788   Message #2025751
Posted By: Barry Finn
15-Apr-07 - 03:21 AM
Thread Name: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
Subject: ADD: Take This Hammer

Take This Hammer (logging or axe song)

Captain called me nappy headed niger (3X)
Ain't my name, ain't my name

I don't want no corn bread & lasses (3X)
Hurts me pride, hurts my pride.

Take this hammer, take it to the Captain (3X)
Tell 'em I'm gone, tell 'em I'm gone.

If he asks you was I running (3X)
Tell 'em I was flying, tel 'em I was flyin

If he asks you was I laughing (3X)
Tell 'em I was crying, tell 'em I was crying.

I don't want your cold iron shackels (3X)
Hurts my legs, hurts my legs.

This is one version (mid 60's) of a prison worksong used with an axe. For more versions see "Wake Up Dead Man" by Bruce Jackson. I don't know where I 1st got this from, it's been so long now but some collected versions date back to 1928.

Azizi's discription of the meaning is dead on. Growing up in a very poor mixed racial inner city community, you'd never call any woman or girl by those terms no matter if you hated them, it was understood that, that insult was enough to rightly draw blood.

Barry