The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #97222   Message #1912323
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
17-Dec-06 - 11:59 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Weevily Wheat
Subject: RE: Origins: Weevily Wheat
All three from Randolph, I was only going to do one, then added the other two. There are six, but the other three don't add anything new. This play party song has picked up a lot along the way.
Here's another, from Missouri, 1911.

WEEVILY WHEAT

1.
Come, honey, my love, and trip with me
In the morning early,
Heart and hand, we'll take our stand;
'Tis true I love you dearly.
Chorus:
Oh, I won't have none of your weevily wheat,
And I won't have none of your barley,
But I must have some of the best of wheat
To bake a cake for Charley.
2.
For Charley He's a nice young man,
Charley he's a dandy;
Charley loves to kiss the girls
Because it comes so handy.
3.
It's over the river to see the gay widow,
It's over the river to Charley,
It's over the river to feed my sheep
And measure up the barley.
4.
If you love me like I love you,
We have no time to tarry,
We'll keep the old folks fixing round
For you and i to marry.

"In the above song, all the stanzas after the first were sung to the tune of the chorus."
Printed with score.
Mrs. L. D. Ames, The Missouri Play-Party, JAFL 1911, vol. 24, No. 93, pp. 295-315, (302-303).

Mrs. Ames says these play-parties were really dances. "The players did not dance, however, to the music of instruments, but kept time with various steps to their own singing. But they were not called dances: they were called simply parties. The better class of people in the country did not believe in dancing. Regular dances, where the music was furnished by a "fiddler," were held, for the most part, only in the homes of the rough element." .... The better class ranked dancing, in the moral scale, along with gambling and fishing on Sunday. It was not good form, and was tabooed on grounds of respectability." He could dance to the time of his own singing, however, and not be condemned and subject to 'reconversion' in church the following Sunday.

It should be added that kisses mentioned in the songs were never carried out. Her comments apply to a large area, west to Texas and north to the Dakotas.

Mrs Ames also comments that tunes were frequently familiar airs borrowed to suit the dancers' needs. "Changes were never 'called off' and the method of playing depended somewhat upon the whim of individual leaders."