This is a song from Cousin Emmy, a Kentucky native and banjo hero of the 1940s (actually Cynthia Mae Carver) who was "re-discovered' by the New Lost City Ramblers in the early sixties. A recording can be found deep in the Smithsonian Folkways archives. The lyrics of Cousin Emmy's version were hardly nonsense, but rather surprising in their assertiveness: "Cat's got the measles, dog's got the whooping cough/ Cat's got the measles, dog's got the whooping cough/Doggone any woman who'd let a man be her boss."