Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 01:59 PM

Use of poems, etc. in papers is scattered. Some Scottish and English journals, as well as some in the U.S. and Canada also used them as filler, or accepted a few papers (very few) on specific material but the practice was never regularized, except in some of the literary journals.
Folk material was uncommonly used, since it was considered illiterate or of poor quality- and very few song-catchers were out there before the 20th C.

The practice depended upon editors and ownership policy, so some papers and journals never used them.

That is why a search is tedious and time-consuming, and possibly costly. Now that some journals and papers have been digitized, the searches are more easily done. Many, however, require a subscription.

I don't have the time or money to subscribe (except to Journal of American Folklore, which started in the 1880s and has articles on folk material from all over). The articles, of course, are mostly on UK and American and Canadian material, as would be expected.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 05:10 PM

So how are we meant to track this song down? I don't have the time to do it, either. Q, you could check the "Journal of American Folklore" and see if by some slim chance they have articles on Caribbean folk songs?

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 05:42 PM

There are some, I think. A time-consumer, since I can't afford the index (not published by JAFL).

Why not just enjoy the song and not worry about provenance? That is my response.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 12:58 AM

Q, I could just enjoy the song, BUT- and this isn't meant to be sarcastic, so don't take it that way- why do origins threads exist if people don't wonder about the origins of songs? And once a suggestion that there might be something more to a song like this turns up, I'm curious enough to find out more.

Another thing. I'm starting to realise how really hard it must be to research something for years and years, yet it must be fun, too.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 01:19 PM

The 'origins' threads can locate (not always) original sheet music or a book with information- mostly using what can be found on the net, or find folk variants that have been handed down- nearly all UK-Irish or North American- little else. Several people here are very knowledgeable on UK-Irish-North American songs.

A few of us have a book or two that are hard to find or have become expensive, but interests are narrow- In my collection of songbooks, I have a couple of rare songbooks with calypso songs, and a lawyer son gave me Nizer's book on his court cases (Rum & Coca-Cola), but I have no personal contact with Caribbean culture. I have a few recordings, but my ear is poor for dialect.

Personaly, I have searched for the origin of some American songs- "My Pretty Quadroon" cost me $40 in donation and fees from a library with perhaps the only copy not lost in the Chicago fire, and another poem, from an archive with old pioneer newspapers, cost me a donation. I cannot afford to do that often.

A few people posting here have intimate access to large UK or U.S. libraries, but most of us would have to pay to access them.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: Dave Rado
Date: 22 May 14 - 03:50 PM

Hi - I'm puzzled by the use of the word "fancy" in the third verse: "They say she fancy de mother". ("she" presumably referring to the daughter). In the UK to "fancy" someone means to desire them, but it couldn't mean that the daughter desires her mother. I'd the word "fancy" used to mean something else in Trinidad?

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 May 14 - 06:38 PM

An old expression in the southern U. S., meaning she is much like her mother.
May apply to either sex; "he fancies his father."

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: Dave Rado
Date: 22 May 14 - 07:23 PM

Ah I wondered if it might mean something like that, thanks. I wonder whether it spread, in that meaning, from the US to Trinidad, or the other way round?

Dave

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 May 14 - 01:17 PM

Hard to tell direction. Possibly a part of plantation-owners and slaves language, and as such could be widespread in the Caribbean.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Emmie
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 06:17 AM

I saw many people are confused about the song John B. It was first written about in 1916 by an Englishman who had heard the song sailing on a schooner from Nassau to the Exumas in the Bahamas. He put the lyrics to the song in his book titled pieces of eight, and that book is where the lyrics come from. In the song you hear round Nassau Town, Nassau is the capital of the Bahamas. The song is a Bahamian folk song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 08:07 PM

Emmie: Check out this Mudcat "John B" thread. State of the art. Spared no expense.
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=32772

Note:
The book's author was Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947) however it was a reprint of his Coral Islands and Mangrove Trees piece for Harper's (New York.)

The song is Hoist the John B. Sails, a two step for piano, composed by Bostonian bandleader-violinist Ed W. Prouty in 1903 and dedicated to the citizens of Nassau, N.P., Bahamas.

The "Wreck Of" backstory was created in 1927 by the Shaw-McCutcheon families as part of the John B. - Canopus - Watchtower trilogy and made popular by Carl Sandburg's reprint in American Songbag. See here:
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=159532

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Emmie
Date: 11 Jan 18 - 03:38 PM

This is new information for me but why would he compose a song about John B and dedicate it to the people of Nassau? A more simpler version must have already existed, and he may have turned it into a full song later. The version that was sung in The Bahamas must of been https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEfki4mZpcI&t=18s recorded in 1935 in Andros which was just a simple anthem.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Emmie
Date: 11 Jan 18 - 04:00 PM

I would also point out that sea chanteys have a long history in The Bahamas, likely originating since 1648 when it was re-inhabited by The Eleutheran Adventurers. The earliest mention I have found of these sailing anthems was mentioned by a Miss Hart an American woman who was living in Nassau Bahamas in 1823-1824.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 12 Jan 18 - 02:02 PM

Emmie:

On shanties: Outside of the sponger era and a few mail packets, the Bahamas has never really had much of a local maritime so, one imagines they sang what the mainlanders sang at the time.

fyi: You might enjoy this recently started thread on Caribbean shantymen and womens:
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=162686

On John B & Prouty: I've replied in the main "John B" thread just to keeps things sorted here.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Emmie
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 02:32 AM

Phil d'conch are you kidding? The Bahamas has a huge maritime history. Bahamians were among the most prominent wreckers since the 17th century. Captain Ben Baker King of the Florida Wreckers. Bahamians participated in Privateering and Pirating throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. They were also widely considered the second best divers in the entire Americas after The Bermudians. https://archive.org/stream/travelsinconfede00schuoft#page/284/mode/2up/search/divers 18th century text.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Emmie
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 02:53 AM

There was also a local ship building culture dating back to the early 1700's. The ship building culture still exist in The Bahamas especially on the family islands, they mostly use the boats for the regattas. The Bahamas has even recently won the 2017 5.5 metre sailing championships, taking Gold and Silver. The Bahamas also has a gold medal in the star class at the olympics and another in the same class at the world championships.

Read this paragraph also from "Even the blacks" on page 301 if your comment is a racial one. https://archive.org/stream/travelsinconfede00schuoft#page/300/mode/2up/search/weekly+

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 04:52 AM

Emmie: Yes, there's all sorts of maritime small industry in the Bahamas. But not a maritime fleet like New England or Europe. There was a reason for all those wreckers. Tall ships did well to stay off the Bahamas Bank. British foreign office types had to layover in New York. The Bahamas never had a direct connection to England until air travel.

I grew up in the islands living aboard. Grand Bahama, Andros and Abaco mostly. Built my first boats there and qualified at UNESCO-Freeport (scuba) before they had a proper clubhouse.

I will say it's the only place I ever saw a genuine working fire bulgine in the wild. Never had cause to use it so no shantying, thank goodness.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Emmie
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 07:40 AM

The Bahamas had no where the population size of New England. There were about 5,000 people living there before the arrival of the loyalists. The Bahamas population nearly tripled after their arrival in the 1780's.

As the fleet is concerned if you are talking about a great many of ships that was Bahamian, I can assure you there were many ships of varying size that traveled to North America and throughout the Caribbean that were owned by Bahamians. Many Bahamians were wreckers but they also owned many merchant and fishing vessels as well. Again I wouldn't compare The Bahamas to New England or an entire continent like Europe but I assure for its size they were a very active maritime society.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 10:17 PM

I'm tempted to open a "Bahamiology" thread on subject drift guilt alone here but...

It's all relative. The same 800-pound gorilla that (almost) put up a Junkanoo-Carnival headlined by Janet Jackson had great-grandparents too.

On some islands, in season, the mainlanders outnumber the residents. Trying to distill one culture from the other is a fool's errand imo.

Take the most recorded version of Peas & Rice for example:

Words by Wolfe Gilbert, American by way of Zsarist Russia.
Music by Charles Lofthouse, born and raised in Nassau, the son of an American Methodist missionary.
Arranged by: John Johnson, American by way of the Bahamas and Haiti.

Love that cultural chowder, yum.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Emmie
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 10:49 PM

It is about historical context. For one take the song Mama bake the Johnny Cake christmas coming. Bahamians are one of the few people if not the only I know to bake Johnny Cake. How is that not in relation to Bahamian culture and have significance?

Charles lofthouse may have copyrighted the song in 1931 but the song was already in existence from 1921, at least the lyrics.

You have to understand what I am saying to you. These songs are based on Bahamian experiences, you can't say it has no significance because people visited The Bahamas or grew up hearing the songs and make them into records. The songs are still Bahamian in culture, history and experience, and that is what I think you are missing.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Emmie
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 11:36 PM

I think you are taking this tourist board narrative too far.

Tourist board would be a organization that look for promoters to bring people to the Bahamas. This doesn't mean the songs themselves haven't already existed and it doesn't mean American visitors didn't come to the islands hear the songs and take it back to their actively competitive culture in the USA which is full of copyrighting and publishing music a tradition which would not have been widespread if at all active in The Bahamas at the time.

The songs are Bahamian no one can argue that at all.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 17 Jan 18 - 12:17 AM

Well... I am a conchy...

The culture, history and experience of a Bahamian "carnival" and Janet Jackson do escape me.

Sorting Lofthouse, Bahamian or American, may change the history books but the past, not so much.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 17 Jan 18 - 02:05 AM

For what it's worth, Emmie, Johnny cakes are well-known in Australian folklore.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST,Makanaima
Date: 22 Mar 20 - 05:41 PM

FYI, the translation of the lyrics to Brown Skin Girl by Lord Invader on fandom are wrong. https://lyrics.fandom.com/wiki/Lord_Invader:Brown_Skin_Girl

This line: "And if daddy don't come back throw away the darn baby" Should be this "And daddy if you don't come back don't say it my baby" it is a bit hard to make out what he's saying in the recording, so he could be saying "And daddy if you don't come back and go say it my baby" Which may more more sense. He's definitely not saying to throw away the baby.

Subject: RE: Origins: Brown Skin Girl- folksong from Grenada
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Mar 20 - 06:14 PM

Correction: "And daddy if you don't come back I go and stay and mind baby"