Tune Add: a humorous song folk-processed

Subject: Tune Add: a humorous song folk-processed
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 11:19 AM

A few days ago, somebody (I was sure it was Q.) posted lyrics for an American minstrel song. The lyrics had been printed in New York City by a firm called Anderson. There was no melody.

I thought the song had some cute ideas, but it seemed carelessly written. So I opened up my folk processor, adjusted the timing, scraped off the condescension and blew up the tires.

Here's how the lyrics are now. I think it would make a great song for schoolkids or for around the campfire. The hyphen are there to line the lyrics up with the notes of the tune.
======
I come from Ca-ro-li-na and my head is full of knowledge,
I ne-ver went to yon-der school; I ne-ver went to college.
But I can tell you one thing, it is a cer-tain fact,
of Noah and the el-e-phant and how the dove came back.

CHORUS:
Walk in
Walk in
Walk in the par-lor.
Walk in the pa-rlor and hear the ban-jo play.

Oh, Light-ning is a pret-ty girl, she lives up in a cloud.
- Storm King is a great big man, and he can hol-ler loud,
But when he kis-ses Light-ning, she darts out in won-der,
Then he jumps up and shakes the cloud, and that's what makes it thunder.

CHORUS

Oh, No-ah built a great big ark, he filled the hold with sausage.
Then all the bugs and an-i-mals, they booked a ca-bin passage.
E-le-phant was ve-ry late; Old No-ah said "You're drunk!"
"Ah, no," said he, "it took me all this time to pack my trunk.

CHORUS

Then No-ah sent the white dove out, a dry place for to seek,
The dove she flew, and she re-turned with'a ban-jo in her beak ... .
I tuned up the ban-jo and played 'em all this tune.
All the pret-ty la-dies there, they fell in-to a swoon.

CHORUS
===========
I wrote a tune and added a sketchy accompaniment. It has a bit of a Caribbean feel, and there's nothing wrong with that. Caribbean tunes, notably in the form of Cakewalks, have been in the South a long time.

If all goes well, the link to my MIDI will appear here.

Click to play MIDI (joeweb).

I hope you like it. I renounce all copyright. Go ahead and sing it.

Subject: RE: Tune Add: a humorous song folk-processed
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 11:32 AM

Leenia,

The tune for this song quite well known. I learnt it at age about 14 it has was known then and still is by many of the older generation in the UK as the NON PC "Darkie's Sunday School".

If you want to hear the tune it has been recorded under the title "Walking in the Parlour" by among others Gandydancer a group from West Virginia made up of Gerry Milnes, Dave Bing, Ron Mullenex, Mark Payne and Jim Martin.
The label is Jim Martin Productions No. JMP-201. Probably still available at County Record Sales, Floyd, Virginia.

I was pleased to learn this version so I could sing it without offending some people. The whole album is great listening if you are into Old Time Music.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Tune Add: a humorous song folk-processed
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 11:48 AM

I'm glad you like my new tune.

Subject: RE: Tune Add: a humorous song folk-processed
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 12:26 PM

Sorry Leenia,
I wasn't commenting on "your tune". I was explaining that you needn't have bothered the "original" is still known.
I have known the tune for years but in recent years learned the words sung by Gerry Milnes which are NOT those printed in your post.

I am in no position to judge your tune I cannot judge from the single note sound which I guess is computer generated.

One of the verses in my Non PC version learned in the boy scouts is;

Moses in the Bulrushes his little life to save
Was Found by Pharo's daughter when she went down to bathe
She took him back to Pharo and said 'I found him on the shore'
But Pharo winked his eye and said 'I've heard that one before'

Chorus: Black folk, white folk, everybody come etc etc

Hoot

Subject: RE: Tune Add: a humorous song folk-processed
From: Artful Codger
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 12:52 PM

The original text posted by Q is in the thread "Ring, Ring de Banjo," where this song is titled "Walk in the Parlor." Other versions have slight variations in title ("Walkin'", "de" etc.)

Sheet music (from Christie's Minstrels) in the Lester S. Levy collection at John Hopkins University:
http://jhir.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/21284

The Library of Congress American Memory site has a broadsheet with two versions of the text.

Devolved old-time banjo versions of the tune can be heard on YouTube.

Subject: RE: Tune Add: a humorous song folk-processed
From: maeve
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 01:06 PM

Thanks for your post, Leeneia. I enjoyed reading your rationale and do think your tune goes well with the folk-processed words. I always enjoy your sense of humor/humour.

Maeve

Subject: RE: Tune Add: a humorous song folk-processed
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Oct 13 - 07:26 PM

Thank you, Maeve.

Other people may think they have 'been there, sung that,' but I bet this is the first song ever where the dove returned to the ark bearing a banjo rather than an olive branch.

Subject: RE: Tune Add: a humorous song folk-processed
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Oct 13 - 06:38 AM

@displaysong.cfm?SongID=1476

Subject: RE: Tune Add: a humorous song folk-processed
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Oct 13 - 10:28 AM

Ah, the memories. My sister came back from a Lutheran camp-out, singing that, in 1965. Then in 1967 I took the folk dance course in college and they played the same tune to teach us some dance whose name I can't recall.