Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 09:25 PM

Riley-
The editor appended a footnote: "The word Riley is not capitalized in the manuscript, but one supposes that it is a man's name."
Not much point in speculating on a word in a barely remembered fragment (contributed by a Miss Mamie E. Cheek of Durham in 1923).

richr posted the spiritual "Go in the Wilderness" in thread 31024:
Brave boys

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: GUEST,Lisa Ritchey (Fred Ritchey)
Date: 04 Dec 11 - 09:57 PM

My father used to sing this song in the car on road trips when we were children. Here are his lyrics...
After the initial refrain...

Now the farmer takes the old gray mare, sits by the side of a thoroughfare, he can make more dough just a waitin there, than he did long years ago.

Well the farmer makes five bucks, for towing in cars & trucks
Yeah, he's the old boy they all call a rube,
they give him a kick, naw, but he's got the boot,
Aw cuz he's not stuck with a flat inner tube,
him or the old gray mare.

Refrain...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 04:15 PM

Just as a matter of interest, the words Earl Robinson sang in 1927 are not those of the indicated title, "Old Gray Mare Kicking Out of the Wilderness."

Robinson is clearly singing,

"Old gray horse, git out the wilderness!
...
Down in Allo-bam!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NWRSnLvpZQ

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 11:01 AM

As every Civil War buff here must know, some of the Confederates before the battle of Chancellorsville (1863) sang, "Old Joe Hooker, get out of the Wilderness...Get out as fast you can!"

The battle of the Wilderness (in the same locale) took place a year later. The following first-person recollection is in a similar vein:

Daniel Hartnett, “The Battle of the Wilderness,” Democratic Northwest (Napoleon, O.) (Feb. 6, 1890), p. 2:

“On the morning of [May 7, 1864]…we started for Spotsylvania C[ourt] H[ouse] and sang…
        O, hain’t I glad to get out of the wilderness,
        Out of the wilderness, down in old Virginia.”

Hartnett wasn't alone. The very next day, recalled Lt. Col. Horace Porter in "Campaigning with Grant," 1897, p. 83:

“A drum corps in passing caught sight of the general [Grant], and at once struck up a then popular negro camp-meeting air. Every one began to laugh, and Rawlins cried, ‘Good for the drummers!’ ‘What’s the fun?’ inquired the general. ‘Why,’ was the reply, ‘they are playing, “Ain’t I glad to get out ob de wilderness!”’ The general smiled at the ready wit of the musicians, and said, ‘Well, with me a musical joke always requires explanation. I know only two tunes: one is ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the other is n’t.’”

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: gillymor
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 11:14 AM

My sisters and their friends use to sing this when skipping rope-

The old grey mare sat in the 'lectric chair,
Burnt off her underwear couldn't get another pair,
The old grey mare sat in the 'lectric chair,
Many long year ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 11:18 AM

A horse of a different colour
Jim Carroll

From Georges- Denis Zimmermann,s Songs of Irish Rebellion
Allen Figgis, Dublin - 1967

TEXT B: Broadside in Cambridge University Library; «

The Sporting Old Grey Mare».

All you young men both great and small take counsel and be wise,
Attention pay to what I say, my lectures don’t despise,
Let patience guide you on every side, of traitors now beware,
There is none but men that’s sound within can ride my Old Grey Mare.

Granuia’s sons great wonder done, they set olid Ireland free,
Joshua and Diavid’s sons, likewise M.cAbee,
Constant the Great will ever shine and be our standard rear,
There’s none but men chat’s sound within can ride my Old Grey Mare.

Buonaparte on her did sitant, he rode full fast, it’s true,
At Moscow plain she got lame and was beat at Waterloo,
She sailed o’er to' the Shamrock shore where Dan he did her care,
The very next chase, she won the race, my sporting Old Grey Mare.

In Erin’s Isle, when fortune smiled, there lived Brian Borue,
Phelan O’Neil, Carlinton Miles, Sarsfieild and Munroe;
Bold
Roderick you know, not long ago, ranged Wexford aod Kildare,
Tandy, Sheares and other peers, they rode on my Grey Mare.

In mutual love, as pure as a dove, when we do each other greet,
Beware of scrapes., broils and spars, or quarrels when you meet,
Don’t probe old sores, nor conquer Job, let patience guide you there,
Lest in a fog that you might bog and drown my Old Grey Mare.
[cankered jobs]

These three hundred years, as it appears, no steady statesman did her ride,
’Til Providence had gave due sense and reared the people’s guide,
Brave noble Dan, ,he now rides on, Erin’s right’s his only care,
The Parliament for to be sent -back on my Old Grey Mare.

VARIANTS: A shorter version of Text A is in a garland printed by Goggin, Limerick. Another garland printed by Grace, Dublin, has «The Adven¬tures of ithe Grey Mare, or the Answer to the Grey Hor.se»; both are in the British Museum. A broadside printed by Haly, Cork, gives a variant with the line:

At the Curragh of Kildare she was crossed1 by Dooley there ...
(cif. song 14.)
TUNE: Texts A and B are in fact two distinct songs with a similar theme, suggesting different tunes. Colm O Lochlainn gives a variant of Joyce (19-09) No. 3/03 with a more recent version of Text B.
NOTE: O’Donovan Rossa, who remembered the first lines of Text A learnt in his chidhood, was certain that the wonderful horse meant Ireland (Rossa’s Recollections, p. 40), but this does not stand the reading of the whole song. The different texts would rather evoke confused ideas of glory, victory, perhaps justice or liberty. In fact, the song has probably no emblematic meaning.
Text B, sit. 4. Phelim O’Neill was a rebel leader executed in 1653; Rode¬rick is probably Rory O’More, a rebel chieftain killed in 1578; James Napper Tandy, John and Henry Sheares were leaders of the United Irishmen.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 03:38 PM

Can't find anything in the thread re 'Down in Demerara' which seems to be a relative somewhere in the mix.

There was a man who had a horselum, had a horselum, had a horselum
Was a man who had a horselum, Down in Demerara
   And here we sits like birds in the wilderness, birds in the             wilderness, birds in the wilderness,
Here we sits like birds in the wilderness
Down etc.

Now that poor horse he fell a-sickalum

Now that poor horse he broke his legalum

Now that poor horse he went and diedalum

Any thoughts on this?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 06:45 PM

Steve, news to me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: Susan of DT
Date: 13 Apr 20 - 05:25 AM

I added a verse for when we play at our retirement community:

You and me, sister, ain't what we used to be
   ain't what we used to be, ain't what we used to be
You and me, brother, ain't what we used to be
   many long years ago, many long years ago
You and me, sister, ain't what we used to be
   many long years ago.

It's the 70 and 80 year olds singing and playing ukuleles to the 90 year olds

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Apr 20 - 01:52 PM

Azizi's Grey Goose song is familiar to me from
a Pete Seeger solo album: Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!
with the banjo in full cry.
I believe the album notes name-check Leadbelly for this song.


Is there a separate thread, I wonder, for
'I've got an old gray mare, but she won't let me ride ... '

it's an old blues song
and Peter Green recorded with his version of Fleetwood Mac.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Apr 20 - 01:53 PM

My mistake, my bad, I'm wrong, I'm sorry:

Long Gray Mare, that's the title that Peter Green sang.
Can't find a Mudcat thread for it either.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: GUEST,John Greaves
Date: 13 Apr 20 - 02:42 PM

My father born 1885 used to sing of the old grey not being what she used to be, but only a snatch of it. He worked in the States during WW1 so may have picked it up there. He tried to join up at the embassy in Washington but was turned down due to an enlarged heart. He had many bits of songs some of which I have never tracked down.
Grey mares seem to be ubiquitous in folk song!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 14 Apr 20 - 06:34 PM

FWIW, Panella's 1915 vaudeville lyrics (above) seem to be the earliest about the old gray "mare" not being "what she used to be" as well as having the first reference to the whiffletree.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: Lighter
Date: 10 May 23 - 12:05 PM

Panella published the song in 1915, but the familiar "ain't what she used to be" lines don't appear anywhere one can find until the 1917 edition.

The tune was popular during the Civil War. Panella's words (whether he originated them or not) were frequently sung on the march during World War I.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Gray Mare
From: Lighter
Date: 10 May 23 - 12:45 PM

"Farmer and Mechanic" (Raleigh, N.C.) (March 22, 1882):

"There is a good deal of talk about the Democratic ballot to 'Retire' Grant. Some of us tried mighty hard to retire him with a bullet, while he was making his little trip from 'the Wilderness' to the [sic] Appomattox - like a 'great big bear done come out de wilderness.'"