The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #5422 Message #1509389
Posted By: GUEST,Lighter at work
25-Jun-05 - 09:05 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Unreconstructed rebel/Good Old Rebel
Subject: RE: Unreconstructed rebel
Seems to me all these Klan and lynching stanzas, along with the Frogs and Squareheads, etc., are pretty idiosyncratic and come from the 20th Century. Lynching reached its peak around 1900, and the presence of "Frogs" and "Squareheads" in the same line - plus the "Eyetalians" and "Micks" - makes me suspect this stanza, and maybe the whole series of them, was written in the 1920s or '30s when the KKK was at the height of its influence with a rabid anti-immigration platform. (Immigration was a major political issue in the '20s.) "Frogs" and "Squareheads" were words widely used overseas during World War I.
I believe that the version in question was printed for the first time (and the only time as collected from supposed tradition) in Frank and Ann Warner's collection.
The more familiar version is sung variously to the tunes of "Joe Bowers" (the most traditional tune), "Son of a Gamboleer," "The Yellow Rose of Texas," and, if I'm not mistaken, "The Bonnie Blue Flag."