The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #90660   Message #1720673
Posted By: Jeri
17-Apr-06 - 09:05 PM
Thread Name: Skin color in songs & singers' names
Subject: RE: Skin color in songs & singers' names
Bill, as far as I know, 'Hogeye Man' is bowdlerized regarding racial terms and bawdiness, NOT skin color.

One song I just thought is a play-party song: Brown Girl In the Ring. I heard it from Bessie Jones when she taught it, along with the game, to a bunch of us at the Niskayuna Folk Festival in 1973. I tried to look for it, but it's not in the DT. I did find a couple of 'Brown Girls', including:
She said "I'm brown as brown can be, I have eyes like a sloe,
I'm brisk as a nightingale, wild as any doe",
She sang, lall lall de deedle derro, lall lall de deedle derro,
Sing derro-lie-lee.

She said, "My love wrote a letter, a love letter from town,
He could not love me, for I was so brown.
She sang, lall lall de deedle derro, lall lall de deedle derro,
Sing derro-lie-lee.
She wins in the end though, because he dies.