The 8 folksongs included in 'Mules and Men" and presented on the Zora Neale Hurston website include recordings from the Library of Congress, sheet music, and lyrics.

Here is one example:

"Mule On De Mount
NOTE: The most widely distributed and best known of all Negro work songs. Since folk songs grow by incremental repetition the diversified subject matter that it accumulates as it ages is one of the evidences of its distribution and usage. This has everything in folklife in it. Several stories to say nothing of just lyric matter. It is something like the Odyssey or the Iliad.

Cap'n got a mule, mule on the Mount called Jerry
Cap'n got a mule, mule on the Mount called Jerry
I can ride, Lawd, Lawd, I can ride.
(He won't come down, Lawd; Lawd, he won't come down, in another version.)

I don't want no cold cornbread and molasses,
I don't want no cold cornbread and molasses,
Gimme beans, Lawd, Lawd, gimme beans.

I don't want no coal-black woman for my regular,
I don't want no coal-black woman for my regular,
She's too low-down, Lawd, Lawd, she's too low-down.


I got a woman, she's got money 'cumulated,
I got a woman, she's got money 'cumulated,
In de bank, Lawd, Lawd, in de bank.

I got a woman she's pretty but she's too bulldozing,
I got a woman she's pretty but she's too bulldozing,
She won't live long, Lawd, Lawd, she won't live long.

Every payday, payday I gits a letter,
Every payday, payday I gits a letter,
Son come home, Lawd, Lawd, son come home.

If I can just make June, July and August,
If I can just make June, July and August,
I'm going home, Lawd, Lawd, I'm going home.


Don't you hear them, coo-coo birds keep a'hollering,
Don't you hear them, coo-coo birds keep a'hollering,
It's sign of rain, Lawd, Lawd, it's sign of rain.


I got a rainbow wrapped and tied around my shoulder,
I got a rainbow wrapped and tied around my shoulder,
It ain't goin' rain, Lawd, Lawd, it ain't goin' rain. "

-snip-

The other folk songs presented are:
Let the Deal Go Down

East Coast Blues

Going to See My Long Haired Babe

John Henry

Can't You Line It

There Stands A Blue Bird

Cold Rainy Day