4. PAPA'S GOT YOUR WATER ON

[Female voice:] Say, you tell me who's the flapper I see you with every night.
And she's vamped you so hard I'm 'bout to lose my appetite.
[Male voice:] That's my brown-skin mama. … right.

I'm going to make you wish you never had been born.
I just went uptown, got my gun out of pawn.
Don't start nothing, baby, because your papa's got your bath water on.

If you don't have me, papa, you won't have no gal at all.
And it seem all the women you meet is bound to fall.
Now, if you don't agree by my jockeying, you can back your mule up in my stall.

Come on, old papa, 'cause mama ain't mad at you.
But tell me what make you keep me so worried and blue.
Your daddy's headed straight, mama, but it ain't got his work to do.

[As recorded by the Memphis Jug Band, 1930, Hattie Hart, lead vocalist.]