I am gonna trouble the water by referring to a post in Aug 1998 by harpgirl in which she mentions the song "Green Sally, Up."

Harpgirl included the verse:

Green Sally up, Green Sally down
Last one to squat got to till the ground.
--
This African American children's game song is included on Disc 4 of Alan Lomax'z Sounds of the South, A Musical Journey fromt the Georgia Sea Isles to the Mississippi Delta.{Atlantic 787496-2; 1993}

The notes for Green Sally,Up says this is "a black children's singing
game performed by a group of women in Como, Miss. The slaves have passed on to a modern generation of children a whole literature of children's songs which resemble the familiar English Ring Around the Rosie, but which were gayer and more syncopated."

Given these notes, this song should probably not be listed in Mudcat's wonderful African America file of African American spirituals. Instead it should be included in the children's songs and African American slavery dance song files {if you have the last mentioned file}.

The words to this song sound to me like
Green Sally up, Green Sally down
last one squat got to till {touch ?}the ground

Ole {Oh?}Miss Lucy dead and gone.
Left me hear to weep and moan.
If you hate it fold your arms
If you love it clap your hands.
--
The same verses are repeated again and again. The tempo of this song is rather slow and handclapping is the only accompaniment.

In my opinion, the "Ole Miss Lucy etc. sounds alot like the "My ole missus {master} promised me" floating verses such as this one found in Dorothy Scarborough's On The Trail Of Negro Folk Songs:

My ole marster promised me
Ef I broke de record h'd set me free.
My ole marster dead and gone,
He lef' Bre'r Wahington hillin' up corn.

--
Could it be that "Green Sally, Up" was a coded way for enslaved people to rejoice in the death of a cruel slave owner while singing a song that seemed to indicate that they weeped and moaned her passing?

Remember that way back then "Miss" was a title that was reserved for white women, so "Miss Lucy" could have been the slave master's wife or some other family member. And since most people were bound to prefer clapping their hands to folding their arms,if Miss Lucy was a mean ole woman who left the slaves to weep and moan {over their terrible hardships not Miss Lucy's passing},then there was bound to have been whole lot of handclapping going on when this song was sung.

"Green" Sally here could mean a young, naive, inexperienced woman who actually beleived that the Missus was going to free her.

Any thoughts on this theory?

Also, Bessie Jones has another version of 'Green sally,Up' in Step It Down, the book on African Amerrican children's songs from the Georgia Seal Isle that was Bessie Jones co-authored with Bess Lomax-Hawes. That version is presented as a syncopated handclap rhyme and dance song with a number of familiar floating verses, including verses that are most often now associated with Mary Mack:

Green Sally up, Green Sally down
Green Sally bake her possum brown.

Asked my mama for fifteen cents
to see the elephant jump the fence.
He jumped so high, he touched the sky
He never got back till the fourth of July.

You see that house upon that hill,
That's where me and my baby live.

Oh the rabbit in the hash come a-stepping in the dash,
With his long-tailed coat and his beaver on.
--
Bess Lomax-Hawes indicates that "The last couplet 'Oh, the rabbit in the hash' may be repeated over and over, either at a steady tempo or speeded uo as much as three times faster. The 'Green Sally" couplet functions as a refrain, and may be put in anywhere ou want it". Also, the book relates that one of the Sea Islanders, Peter Davis, had said that he always said "Rabbit in the hatchet". This seems to be an example of folk etymology..

Unfortunately, I don't have a recording of the "Step It Down" version, but it's description leaves me to believe it's much faster tthan the Sounds of the South version.

Is anyone familiar with this version of this song?