Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo

Subject: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Sean Belt
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 12:47 PM

Looking for lyrics for fiddle tune "Old Mother Logo". I've got one verse:

Old Mother Logo, she drinks whiskey
Old Mother Logo, she drinks wine
She got drunk last Saturday night
And tried to cross the river on a pumpkin vine.

Oh, the deaths of my poor children!
Oh, the deaths that they did die!
One got shot and one got stabbed
And one choked eatin' on a chicken pie.

But am hoping to catch others.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Charley Noble
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 10:03 AM

I haven't run across that one. I wonder if it's another of the old minstrel sets that has been passed on.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: GUEST,Geff Crawford
Date: 25 Dec 08 - 12:48 AM

Here's the version I heard Mike Seeger sing in 1978 at a festival:

Old Mother Logo, she got drunk
Fell in the fire and she kicked up a chunk
A red hot coal got in her shoe
And it's good god almighty how the ashes flew

Doodle adle oo da do da do da
Doodle adle oo da do die ay
Doodle adle oo da do da do da
Doodle adle oo da do die ay

Old Mother Logo, fare thee well
She tried to cross a river in a pumpkin shell
The river was deep and the river was wide
And she never did make it to the other side

Doodle adle oo da do da do da
Doodle adle oo da do die ay
Doodle adle oo da do da do da
Doodle adle oo da do die ay

Oh, my poor children
Oh, how they did cry
Some got sick and some got drownded
Some got choked on chicken pit

Doodle adle oo da do da do da
Doodle adle oo da do die ay
Doodle adle oo da do da do da
Doodle adle oo da do die ay

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: masha
Date: 26 Dec 08 - 12:20 AM

Ah, that would be:
"Some got choked on chicken PIE".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Azizi
Date: 26 Dec 08 - 08:47 AM

Thanks! "Pie" rhymes much better than "pit".

:o)


I'm wondering if Old Mother Logo is the same as Old Mother Hippletoe*, a wonderful 33 1/3 record of traditional Amerian "Rural and Urban Children's Songs" {1978. New World Records NW 291. Mono}

I found the album at a public library "book" sale and still have the album cover and its superb record notes that were written by Kate Rinzler. But somehow the record itself went missing.

However, thanks to a great Mudcatter, I have a "homemade" CD of this album!!!

Which brings me full circle {if you'll pardon the phrase when talking about children's folk songs}. I've wondered where the "Old Mother Hippletoe" title came from. Is there a song about "Old Mother Hippletoe" or is she the same as "Old Mother Logo"? {whose name I had never knew until reading this thread}

Any information about this will be appreciated.

*The hyperlink takes you to a HTML cached page of the record notes and lyrics of all these folk songs.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 10:10 AM

The Hoosier Schoolmaster by Edward Eggleston (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1913) gives this quote in a footnote. It is called a "folk-rhyme or nursery jingle":

Old Mother Hunk
She got drunk
And fell in the fire
And kicked up a chunk.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 10:43 AM

'Old Mother Hippletoe' is a version of one of the more common forms of Roud 131, 'Old Daddy Fox' (and many other names) as the lyric transcription at Azizi's link makes clear: 'Old Mother Hippletoe' is the name of the owner of the stolen goose in that version. In others (of which there are many; see numerous past discussions here) she is 'Flipperflopper', 'Slipperslopper', and other names. There's no reason to think the song is in any way connected to 'Old Mother Logo'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Azizi
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 11:49 AM

Thanks for that information, Malcolm.

Now that you mention it, I've read [but not heard] songs with the "Old Mother Flipperflopper" name, but I never associated them with "Old Mother Hippletoe".

I apologize for any confusion that might result from my question.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 11:05 PM

It reminded me of the wail of the poor woman:

"Oh, the death of my six children,
Oh, the death that they did die;
Two got sick and two got drownded,
Two got choked on chicken pie."

--from remarks by the toastmaster, Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, to the New England Society of Pennsylvania, Dec. 22, 1908.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Jan 09 - 11:23 PM

Google Book Search allows only a "snippet view" of the following publications:


From Bulletin of the Tennessee Folklore Society, 1936, page 31:

My poor wife and my poor children
Lived way acrost the big Black Mountain,
Some got drunk and some got drownded
Some got choked on chicken pie. ...


From Stars Fell on Alabama by Carl Lamson Carmer (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1934), page 73:

My poor wife and my poor children
Lived away in the Allegheny mountains,
Some got drunk and some got drowned,
Some got choked on chicken pie. ...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 03 Jan 09 - 12:05 PM

From Family Puzzlers by Mary Bondurant Warren (Danielsville, GA: Heritage Papers, 1995):

Oh, the death of them poor children!
Oh, how wretched they did die!
Some were shot and some were drowned,
And some were choked on chicken pie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Sean Belt
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 01:36 PM

Thanks for all the responses to the initial question. This all goes to show that chicken pies were an obvious major concern in child-rearing years ago. Probably should still be!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: Azizi
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 05:56 PM

This all goes to show that chicken pies were an obvious major concern in child-rearing years ago.
-Sean Ruprecht-Beltthe

Somewhat off-topic, Sean Ruprecht-Belt, it's my opinion that the major concern regarding chicken pie for many people years ago was how to get some.

Chicken, and chicken pie are fondly mentioned in a number of African American secular slave {19th century and probably earlier} and post-slavery songs. For example, there's the floating verses about

"Old Joe Clark* he had a house, sixteen stories high
Every story in that house was full of chicken pie

*or "My gal has a house in Baltimo" etc...

It's important to realize that the diet of many enslaved African Americans and quite a few emancipated African Americans were at levels very near or at starvation. Many mothers lost a number of children who survived childbirth not only to those children being sold away from them, or to severe injuries, usually without the availability of any medical care, but also to poor diet and starvation. The widely known song "Shortnin Bread" alludes to those difficult living conditions, though a doctor is mentioned as seeing the sick children:

Three little chillin, lyin' in bed,
Two was sick and de other most dead,
Mammy called de doctor,
De doctor said,
Feed dem chillin on short'nin' bread.

[Source for these two and other folk songs:

http://www.gustafsonzook.com/SkipWords.php ]

-snip-

Chicken, chicken pie, any kind of sugar or sweetened dishes were rare treats for many 19th century and earlier African Americans. That probably was also the case for economically poor, non-Black people living during those times.

I respectfully suggest that folks might want to keep this in mind when they read or hear secular songs from those times that include references to people craving chicken pie, stealing chickens, lovin shortnin bread, and wishing for some sugar candy or some other sweetened dessert.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Old Mother Logo
From: GUEST,rocky
Date: 18 Sep 19 - 12:55 AM

If there's anyone still left on this thread, check out: https://folkways-media.si.edu/liner_notes/arhoolie/ARH09032.pdf
Chicken Pie, as performed by Jim Smoak & the Louisiana Honeydrippers
I would say this is a really good dance tune.
Per the liner notes (I have a CD of this recording): "Chicken Pie is a lively evocation of a wild party in the country: Some got drunk an' some got drownded, Some got choked on chicken pie. Jim Smoak learned the words from his grandfather, and Dewey Edwards learned the tune from his father."