Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah

Subject: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From:
Date: 07 Aug 02 - 12:27 PM

Can someone help me locate the lyrics of an old song? I'm not sure if I have the title right, but there is a line which goes: "Someone's in the kitchen with Diana. Someone's in the kitchen I know ho ho. Someone's in the kitchen with Diana, Strumming on the old banjo".

Please help. The tune is driving me nuts. not a long trip.

Thanks Tom

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 07 Aug 02 - 12:36 PM

Tom,

You're looking for "I've Been Working on the Railroad." The lady's name in the verse you quote is actually Dinah.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Aug 02 - 12:36 PM

In the DT, I've Been Working on the Railroad

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: masato sakurai
Date: 07 Aug 02 - 01:28 PM

This song these days is usually sung as the second part of "I've Been Working On the Railroad," but it was a separate song. "The words and a different melody appear under the title Old Joe, or Somebody in the House with Dinah published by Duncomb, 10 Middle Row, Holborn, London, ca. 1835-1848, the 'music composed' by J.H. Cave. [...] As the late Sigmund Spaeth pointed out to the author [James J. Fuld], the melody is basically an embellishmet of the melody of Goodnight Ladies." (James J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music, 4th ed., Dover, 1995, pp. 513-514).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: masato sakurai
Date: 08 Aug 02 - 03:57 AM

On "Good Night Ladies", see this thread: Lyr Req: Good Night Ladies.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 08 Aug 02 - 12:52 PM

And I thought that someone had written a song about the late, lamented Princess !!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: Blackcatter
Date: 08 Aug 02 - 01:59 PM

Maybe - but what would Diana be doing in the kitchen?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 09 Aug 02 - 11:30 AM

Probably exiting the hotel the back way to avoid Paparazzi.

Subject: Lyr Add: LEVEE SONG
From: masato sakurai
Date: 10 Aug 02 - 11:25 AM

There's a note to the name "Dinah" HERE, which says: "Dinah was a slang term for a slave woman and, by extension, any woman of African-American descent, as in the song lyric 'Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, Someone's in the kitchen, I know.'"

James J. Fuld writes in The Book of World-Famous Music, 4th ed. (Dover, 1996, p. 309): "The first known appearance in print of I've Been Working on the Railroad is under the title Levee Song, in Carmina Princetonia (8th ed., Martin R. Dennis & Co., Newark, N.J., 1894), p. 24." This version doesn't have the "Someone's in the Kitchen" part. It would be interesting to quote the whole song, from my copy of Carmina Princetonia: The Princeton Song Book, 21th ed. (G Shirmer, 1927, pp. 70-71).

LEVEE SONG
(copyright, 1894, by Martin R. Dennis & Co.)

1.
(SOLO) I once did know a girl named Grace--
(QUARTET) I'm wukkin' on de levee;
SOLO) She done brung me to dis sad disgrace
(QUARTET) O' wukkin' on de levee.

Chorus:
I been wukkin' on de railroad
All de livelong day,
I been wukkin' on de railroad
Ter pass de time away.
Doan' yuh hyah de whistle blowin'?
Ris up, so uhly in de mawn;
Doan' yuh hyah de cap'n shouin',
"Dinah, blow yo' hawn?"

2.
Sing a song o' the city;
Roll dat cotton bale;
Niggah aint half so happy
As when he's out o' jail
Norfolk foh its oystahshells,
Boston foh its beans,
Chahleston foh its rice an' cawn,
But foh niggahs New Awleens.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: GUEST,ADalton
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 02:08 PM

Here are the lyrics to "I've been working on the Railroad" as they appear in "Fireside Book of Folk Songs" selected and edited by Margaret Bradford Boni, copyright 1947 by Simon & Schuster.

"Oh I was bo'n in Mobile town, I'm wukkin' on de levee
All day I roll de cotton down, A wukkin' on de levee
chorus: I been wukkin' on de railroad all de live-long day
             I been wukkin' on de rail-road to pass de time a-way
             Doan' yo' hyar de whistle blowin? Rise up so early in de mawn
             Doan' yo' hyar de Cap'n shoutin' 'Dinah blow yo' hawn'
I use' to have a dog name' Bill, A wukkin' on de levee
He run away, but I'm here still, A wukkin' on de levee
             (chorus)
Dat li'l ole dog up an' beg, A-wukkin' on de levee
Till I done give him chicken leg, A wukkin' on de levee
             (chorus)
I once did know I girl named Grace,while wukkin' on de levee,
She done bring me to dis sad disgrace, A-wukkin' on de levee."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 03:54 PM

Hmmm, only 8 years on, but we used to song this as a Girl Guide camp-fire song in England, way back in my long-distant youth! It didn't have many verses, but we used to do banjo-playing impressions! I think we sang it about 3 times over, getting faster each time.
And we might have split the singers in half with one half doing the first part against the others doing the other part.
As another poster has said, the tune was like "Goodnight Ladies" (tho' more syllables to fit in)

Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah,
Someone's in the kitchen, I know, I know,
Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah,
Playing on the old banjo.

And it went oo-plunk eye-plunk fiddley-i-o-plunk
Oo-plunk eye-plunk fiddley-i-o plunk
Oo-plunk eye-plunk fiddley-i-o plunk
Playing on the old banjo.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: GUEST,malcolm tonkin
Date: 29 Feb 12 - 01:45 PM

It may interest people to learn that this song is till sung with gusto in parts of Cornwall or when Cornish people get together. It seems to have been adopted into their folklore history. I believe it to have come into prominece when a touring trio of American singers visited the county years ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: Mo the caller
Date: 01 Mar 12 - 06:27 AM

I think it was a pop song in the UK in the 50s maybe. I certainly heard it a lot at one time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: Joe_F
Date: 01 Mar 12 - 06:38 PM

I was startled to see "Sing a song o' the city" appear as the original second stanza of "I've been working on the railroad". It reappears, by itself, cleaned up a bit, to a different tune, in _The New Song Fest_:

Sing a song of cities; roll dat cotton bale;
Rustabout am happy, as long's he's out of jail;
Norfolk fo' its oyster shells, Boston fo' its beans;
Cha'leston fo' its rice an' corn, but fo' lassies, New Orleans.

And to that tune, later on, that book also has

'Twas only an old beer bottle, floating on the foam.
'Twas only an old beer bottle, a thousand miles from home.
Inside was a piece of paper, with these words written on:
"Whoever finds this bottle, finds the beer all gone...."

Thereupon I am tempted to chime in with "Man on top of woman...", but never mind.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 01 Mar 12 - 07:43 PM

As I knew it minus the "plunks": and what IS that instrument he's playing??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcPk1-UjHKQ

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 01 Mar 12 - 08:35 PM

gas can banjo, a close relative of the cigar box banjo and cookie tin banjo.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 13 - 02:24 PM

Name is: "Dihna".

Do a search for this, and get MANY results.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Diana
From: PHJim
Date: 25 Jul 13 - 01:19 AM

My brother Bob wrote a song to be sung with I've Been Workin' On The RR. Here's a link to the tune on what's left of his myspace page. I seem to be able to hear it. He got his daughter, Steph to sing it. Although Steph is a banjo player, she plays guitar for this version.
Steph sings Dinah's RR Song

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah
From: Dave Hunt
Date: 26 Jul 13 - 10:01 AM

Collected in Broseley Shropshire - used by the local morris dancers in the 19th century
We (Ironmen of Ironbridge, about mile from Broseley) still use the tune for one of our dances.
Shropshire Bedlams also use it. It's a version of Not for Joe

Somebody's in the house with Dinah, somebody's in the house I know
Somebody's in the house with Dinah, playing on the old banjo

Too ra loo ra li doe, too ra loo ra li doe, too ra loo ra li doe
playing on the old banjo

Oh there was a little n***er and he grew no bigger, so they put him in the wild west show
He tumbled from the wind'er and he broke his little finger
And couldn't play the old banjo

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah
From: Joe_F
Date: 26 Jul 13 - 07:53 PM

As has been pointed out elsewhere, if "I've Been Working..." is sung simultaneously with "Old Black Joe", there is a naughty coincidence.