GO LONG MULE

I've got a mule, he's such a fool
He never pays no heed
I built a fire right under him
And then I made some speed

Oh go 'long mule, don't you roll them eyes
You can change a fool but a doggone mule
Is a mule until he dies

Oh Jerry Aches and Dottie Pain
Got married on the train
And now they'll say that Georgy woods
Is full of Aches and Pains

Oh go 'long mule, don't you roll them eyes
You can change a fool but a doggone mule
Is a mule until he dies
He, he, hehe, ha, ha haha etc

I drove right down to the graveyard once
For to see those pals of mine
But when that black man crossed my path
I sure, lord, changed my mind

Oh go 'long mule, don't you roll them eyes
You can change a fool but a doggone mule
Is a mule until he dies

I bought some biscuits for my dog
And I laid them on the shelf
I slept so hard, I shot the dog
And ate that bread myself

Oh go 'long mule, don't you roll them eyes
You can change a fool but a doggone mule
Is a mule until he dies
He, he, hehe …

A man way down in Georgy
Pulled his gun on me
But when he fired that second shot
I passed through Tennessee

Oh go 'long mule, don't you roll them eyes
You can change a fool but a doggone mule
Is a mule until he dies

Source: transcription of reissue on Uncle Dave Macon 'Go Long Mule' County CO-CD –3505. Recorded on 9 May 1927.

This song was from the minstrel tradition. It was first recorded by Ukulele Bob Williams, a black songster, for Paramount in November 1924. Howard Odum reported that it was 'sung with remarkable effect at the Dayton, Tennessee, Scopes trial, with hundreds of whites and Negroes standing around the quartette of Negroes who came for the occasion'. John Thomas Scopes was a biology teacher who had defied the state law prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution. He was tried and found guilty. Ukelele Bob's version was recorded a year before the Scopes trial. His first stanza and chorus coincides with Uncle Dave's except that he sang in the chorus: 'You can't change a fool for a doggone mule/Is a mule until he dies'. Ukelele Bob also had the 'biscuits for the dog' stanza and the following:

My mule refuse to work for me
I know the reason for that
He found out that I was a Re-publican
And he's a Demo-crat
Oh go 'long mule …

The song permitted the easy addition of new verses. Odum collected one referring to a KKK gathering:

They're gonna hold a meeting there
Of some society
There's 'leven sheets upon the line
That's ten too much for me

Uncle Dave could well have picked up the song at medicine or minstrel shows. [Above information from Paul Oliver 'Songsters & Saints: Vocal Traditions on Race Records' Cambridge Uni Press, 1984, pp 104-105]
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