Hi Gern,My cookie also mysteriously disappeared when I posted the above message. I reset it and it came back. Have you tried to reset yours?
You are quite right. I had completely forgotten that recording even though I have it both on vinyl and CD. However, my vinyl song title database crashed long ago and I'm way behind in my cataloguing for CDs. It differs from the Watson version in the DT - has 4 line stanzas, interspersed with instrumental passages, and is much shorter. Try as I might, I cannot hear a 'don't' in the mother-in-law line! It definitely sounds to me that he wants to see his mother-in-law. What do you reckon? Strange. In his notes to the CD, Charles Wolfe says it was very popular in the late 20s and performed on the Opry by numerous groups such as the Binkley Brothers' Dixie Clodhoppers, the McGee Brothers, the Pickard Family and Uncle Dave Macon. I don't know whether that means Uncle Dave sang that version as well as his 'Give Me Back My Five Dollars' but, as far as I can tell, he never recorded it under the 'fifteen cents' title. If the Binkley Brothers version is the earliest, it would be interesting to know when, and by whom, the later changes and additions were made. My transcription of the Binkley Brothers version follows:
GIMME BACK MY FIFTEEN CENTS
Give me back my fifteen cents
Give me back my money
Oh give me back my fifteen cents
And I'll go home to mammy
I left my home in Tennessee
And I thought I'd learn to travel
Then I fell in love with a pretty little girl
And then I played the devil
I loved that gal and she loved me
And I thought we'd live together
But then we tied that fatal knot
And now I'm gone forever
I want to see my mother-in-law
And I want to see my mammy
So give me back my fifteen cents
And I'll go home to mammy
Give me back my fifteen cents
Give me back my money
Oh give me back my fifteen cents
And I'll go home to mammy
Source: transcription of reissue of Binkley Brothers' Dixie Clodhoppers 'Give Me Back My Fifteen Cents' on Various artists 'Nashville: The Early String Bands Vol 1' County CO-CD-3521. Recorded Nashville, TN, 2 October 1928.
--Stewie.