Origins: Swing and Turn Jubilee

Subject: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: banjogal
Date: 10 Mar 01 - 11:26 AM

Anyone know the history of this tune? Who wrote it or if it's traditional, any other verses, where it came from....

Thanks

---

Click for lyrics in Digital Tradition

SWING AND TURN, JUBILEE

It's all out on the old railroad,
It's all out on the sea,
All out on the old railroad,
Far as I can see.

cho: Swing and turn, Jubilee,
Live and learn, Jubilee.

Hardest work I ever done,
Workin' on the farm,
Easiest work I ever done,
Swingin' my true love's arm.

If I had a needle and thread,
As fine as I could sew,
I'd sew my true love to my side
And down this creek I'd go.
If I had no horese to ride,
I'd be found a-crawlin'
Up and down this rocky road
Lookin' for my darlin'.

Some will come on a Sat'day night,
Some will come on Sunday;
If you give 'em half a chance
They'll be back on Monday.

I won't have no widder man
Neither will my cousin,
You can get such stuff as that
For fifteen cents a dozen.

Coffee grows on a white oak tree,
Sugar runs in brandy,
Girls are sweet as a lump of gold,
Boys as sweet as candy.
@dance @banjo
filename[ JUBLEE
RG

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Mar 01 - 12:11 PM

No, but welcome to the Mudcat!

Just arrived?

~Susan

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 10 Mar 01 - 12:21 PM

It's from Jean Ritchie, and is probably under copyright. She's an occasional Mudcatter, so she can answer your question better than anyone else! Come on in, Kytrad!

Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: GUEST,Roll&Go-C
Date: 10 Mar 01 - 01:05 PM

Looks to me from the DT like there are a number of floating verses from Shady Grove, Get Along Home, Cindy, I'm Goin' Down to Lynchburg Town et al; my favorite verse of this type is:

Love it is a killing thing,
Beauty is a blossem,
If you want your finger bit,
Poke it at a possum.

But then there's also:

I'm gonna get some sticks and stones,
Build my chimney higher,
So when that old tom cat comes by,
He won't put out my fire.

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Pinetop Slim
Date: 10 Mar 01 - 01:48 PM

Sandy, from her last postings, I'd guess Jean Ritchie still has another week or so on her 50th anniversary Caribbean cruise. Alan Lomax, in Folk Songs of N. America, says she recorded it for him in 1949. "A composite of stanzas from many play-party and square dance songs. Last two verses added from the record Southern Singing Games, Elektra EKLP 2."

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 10 Mar 01 - 03:22 PM

I haven't looked, but isn't the song included in her Singing Family of the Cumberlands? Granted, it's a "zipper verse" type of song, but if Alan included it in Folk Songs of North America, you can bet your boots that someone has this particular version copyrighted.

I remember Frank Warner singing the "get your finger bit" verse in one of his songs. True, too!

Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: chip a
Date: 10 Mar 01 - 03:31 PM

Welcome Banjogal! I also just joined. Just yesterday I checked out an old album "Banjo Playing Girl" from the library. A scratchy collection of old time female singers & banjo pickers. It's got a lot of good stuff on it. "Banjo on my knee blues" is a good one. Chip

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Mar 01 - 04:03 PM

It's not in "Singing Family," Sandy, but it is in Jean Ritchie's Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians, which I think is still in print. Jean says the song was copyrighted in 1939 by Lynn Rorhbough. Jean says her mother and father used to sing and play this party game when they were courting. I'll send Jean a personal message and ask what she can post about the song.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 10 Mar 01 - 06:05 PM

Hello all, and welcome, Banjoperson! Well, Jubilee IS a Ritchie Family gamesong, but I never did a "protective" copyright on it because it was collected from another source in the community- everyone around knew it. A lady named Marian Skein wrote it down at Ary, KY, and it was published by (Mr.) Lynn Rohrbough, Cooperative Recreation Service, Delaware, OH in 1939. Now has become World Around Songs and has a different address (will look it up if anyone REALLY wants to know!).

The verses we sing are pretty well set, as we sang just the number to get us through one turn of the game (circle for as many as will, but our living rooms would hold just about six or seven couples). There's a reel down between the lines at the end, then another couple leads out, as in the Virginia Reel. If anyone needs my verses, holler.

Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians was reissued last year by University Press of KY; this year they reissued, The Swapping Song Book. It's like having a second family, very pleasing.

Just home from "crusin, bloody-well cruisin." Amazing to float around on calm seas in eternally sunny warmth (80F every day), no cooking to do, no dishes to wash, family members being unbelievably, suspiciously nice. Cruising is something we never do- (we're so busy, and it's such an uppity thing for folkpeople to do), but we decided that as this particular Anniversary comes round only once in 50 years, we'd better get the hang of it. Report: It was beautiful, exciting, a bit boring, restful,expensive, exhausting and a lot of fun! I'm glad to be home.

Jean

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 10 Mar 01 - 08:03 PM

And we're glad to have you back safely and on dry land again, Jean! Maybe when Caroline and I make it to our fiftieth we'll have a go at one of those uppity cruises!

Anyone else remember all those little songbooks put out by the Cooperative Recreation Service, or the wonderful variety of wooden toys they marketed? A lot of us still have boxed sets of them on our shelves. They were a bit annoying, sometimes, because the "Vermont Sings" booklet (for example) would add a few songs from Vermont to many of the songs that had appeared in other songbooks, and the contents would be a bit disappointing, since very little would be new! But some of those litte books became and remain classics. We also got out first Tangram puzzle from them, nicely crafted from walnut. Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 12:19 AM

As I think about it, the Tangram came from "World Wide Games," also in Delaware, Ohio. What is it about these small Ohio towns, Spaw? Good international folk stuff! Yet they sent how many Tafts to Washington?

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 05:07 AM

For the record, here's the address for World Around Songs:
20 Colberts Creek Road
Burnsville, NC 28714
[phone]

I got a copy of their catalog in the mail just this week. I thought they had a pocket play party songbook, but it looks like what they have is bigger and better. Guess I'll have to get it, although what I'm really looking for is The Singing Game by the Opies.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 03:07 PM

ABE lists one copy from K Books at $36.72, Joe. Too rich for my blood, but there it is. I found it through Bookfinder.com.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 05:35 PM

The old Coop. Rec. Svce. put out "Handy" Kits; one was the Handy Play Party Book (over 100 playparties for $1), and a companion, Handy Square Dance Book. They were mens-back-pocket size, very practical. I guess from what you say, Joe, World Around has discontinued them. Too bad.

Thanks for your welcom-home, Sandy, and we hope you make it to your 50th and long, long beyond. Jean

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 05:55 PM

Well, Jean, the Handy Play Party Book now costs $12.50, plus $3.50 shipping. It has 128 pages and a "durable wire-o binding." You say you used to pay a buck for those? I guess it shows how we're aging. There's no square dance book listed in the catalog.

$36.72 is about twice what I hope to pay for The Singing Game. I meant to ask Sandy to keep an eye out for a reasonably-priced copy of the book, and I see he has anticipated my needs. What a guy!

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 12 Mar 01 - 06:00 PM

I'll keep watching, Joe. That's my kind of surfing!

Jean, we'll look forward to sharing a concert with you on the evening of our 50th! Right now we're at 43, pushing 44, but you and George started younger than we did.

Sandy

Subject: Origins: Swing and Turn Jubillee
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 26 Dec 12 - 04:22 PM

Recently added this song to my playlist and I'm wondering if anyone knows its origins. And what the title is referencing?

There's more than one version of the song btw, I do the one that starts
All Along the Old Railroad.

Subject: RE: Origins: Swing and Turn Jubillee
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 26 Dec 12 - 07:39 PM

See this thread:
Help: Swing and Turn Jubilee for some information on Jean Richie as the source and it's presence in her community.

Mick

---

Threads combined. -Joe Offer-

Subject: Origins: Swing And Turn, Jubilee
From: MickyMan
Date: 20 Jan 17 - 02:02 PM

Anybody have some info about the background of this song? Is it traditional or composed?
    I've always been under the impression that it was written by Jean Ritchie, and the version on the digitrad looks like hers in every way. It's not listed with credit for Jean Ritchie, however, but it also doesn't say "Traditional"
    The other day I heard a nice Youtube version by Alyson Kraus on Youtube that was much slower (listed simply as "Jubilee"). It used the same refrain as Ritchie's "Swing and turn, Jubilee    Live and learn, Jubilee. The verses were different, however.
    Are they both writing new verses to an earlier traditional refrain?   What's up?

Subject: RE: Origins: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jan 17 - 02:58 PM

Hi, MickyMan-
I've moved you over to the existing origins thread. See the message above (click) from kytrad (Jean Ritchie). She says it's from her community and her family - not her composition.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origins: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: MickyMan
Date: 22 Jan 17 - 02:18 PM

Thank you for adding me here, Joe.   Some good info above about Jean Ritchie's version, but perhaps some people know more about where Alyson Kraus got her verses?
(Love the way that Jean Ritchie and Sandy Paton are discussing anniversaries in 2001! Gotta love MUDCAT!)

Subject: RE: Origins: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: GUEST,Random Student
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 12:11 PM

I just found the origins of swing and turn nubiles. It's from a 2004 documentary called "Paperclips". I hope I have helped someone!

Subject: ADD Version: Swing And Turn Jubilee (Krauss)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 09:48 PM

I need to add the Alison Krauss lyrics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stviDWgDHMM

SWING AND TURN JUBILEE
(As sung by Alison Krauss)

The sun came up on Monday morn,
the world was all in flame.
It's all a mortal man can do,
to make it right again.

Swing and turn Jubilee
Live and learn Jubilee

The moon came up I stood my ground,
and swore to not give in.
To never rest and do my best,
to rid this world of sin.
Swing and turn jubilee
Live and learn jubilee

The one who spoke cried tears of hope,
that we might change in time.
And when I looked into her eyes,
the fear I saw was mine.
Swing and turn jubilee
Live and learn jubilee

The time had come to travel on,
I made my way alone.
My soul will mend at journey's end,
this road will take me home.
Swing and turn jubilee
Live and learn jubilee

Subject: ADD Version: Swing and Turn Jubilee (Ritchie)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Dec 20 - 12:53 AM

JUBILEE

All out on the old railroad,
’S’all out on the sea,
’S’all out on the old railroad
Far as eye can see.

     Swing ’n’ turn, Jubilee!
     Live ’n’ learn, Jubilee!

Hardest work I ever done
Working on the farm,
Easiest work I ever done
Swinging my true love’s arm.

     Swing ’n’ turn, Jubilee!
     Live ’n’ learn, Jubilee!

Coffee grows on the white-oak tree,
Sugar runs in brandy,
Boys as pure as a lump of gold,
Girls as sweet as candy.

     Swing ’n’ turn, Jubilee!
     Live ’n’ learn, Jubilee!

If I had me a needle and thread
Fine as I could sew,
Sew my true love to my side,
And down this creek I’d go.

     Swing ’n’ turn, Jubilee!
     Live ’n’ learn, Jubilee!

If I had no horse to ride,
I’d be found a-crawling,
Up and down this rocky road
Looking for my darling.

     Swing ’n’ turn, Jubilee!
     Live ’n’ learn, Jubilee!

All out on the old railroad,
’S’all out on the sea,
’S’all out on the old railroad
Far as eye can see.

     Swing ’n’ turn, Jubilee!
     Live ’n’ learn, Jubilee!


Copyright 1940 by Lynn Rohrbough (Cooperative Recreation Service)

From Jean Ritchie's Swapping Song Book (1952 & 1999), page 26

Subject: RE: Origins: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: GUEST,Guest: Timothy B
Date: 19 Oct 22 - 01:28 PM

Hi all!

Just heard this tune covered by The A's. I was curious to find out if anyone knew the dance for this song?

Thanks so much for all the great info here!

Timothy

Subject: RE: Origins: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: cnd
Date: 19 Oct 22 - 02:01 PM

From American Square Dance (Dec 1979, p. 15), the dance seems to be "similar" to that of the Virginia Reel. Recall that any "flirtatious" movements like swinging.

"Coffee grows on a White Oak tree,
Sugar runs in Brandy.
"Girls as sweet as a lump of gold,
Boys as sweet as candy.

The coffee from the White Oak tree in these lyrics from the play party "Jubilee" refers to the pioneers making coffee from acorns. One verse of "Jubilee", the steps of which bear considerable resemblance to the Virginia Reel, tells of the delight
taken in the games.

Haven't been able to find any videos or anything more direct, but that's at least a start.

Subject: RE: Origins: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: cnd
Date: 19 Oct 22 - 02:02 PM

... "flirtatious" movements like swinging were not allowed.

Subject: RE: Origins: Swing and Turn Jubilee
From: cnd
Date: 19 Oct 22 - 02:06 PM

Here's something a little more concrete:

This play party game comes from Jean Ritchie’s family tradition.

Children stand facing a partner in two lines holding hands. The ends of the lines also hold hands so they can circle to the left until back in their original position in two lines. Hands are dropped and the pair at the head of the line skips sideway to the bottom of the set as the others clap. Once they reach the foot the game continues as before.

via http://www.singinggamesforchildren.com/A%20Cluster%202.2%20Awaywego/20%20Follow%20my%20leader%20and%20other%20games%202.htm