Origins: Buckeye Jim - other odd lullabies

Subject: RE: Buckeyed Jim: Oddest lullaby I've heard
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 01:13 PM

The adult version actually sounds like a retrofit--that is, someone took a song and tried to finish it up and tie it all together--I like it the other way better, though--

Subject: Lyr Add: BUCKEYE JIM
From: masato sakurai
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 02:41 AM

I don't know if this may help, but there's another version with a comment.

BUCKEYE JIM

1.
'Way up yonder above the sky,
A bluebird lived in a jay-bird's eye.

(REFRAIN)
Buckeye Jim, you can't go,
Go weave and spin, you can't go, Buckeye Jim.

2.
'Way up yonder above the moon,
A blue-jay nests in a silver spoon.

3.
'Way down yonder in a wooden trough,
And old wo-man died of the whoopin' cough.

4.
'Way down yonder on a hollow log,
A red bird danced with a green bullfrog.

"The folk-stuff of all lands is peopled with charming animals that dance and dine and are otherwise animated with human and superhuman qualities. American animal songs, however, are ordinarily either broadly comic or deeply pathetic. In 'Buckeye Jim' there is a feeling of otherworldliness, the sense of things seen through the mirror of fantasy. Hum 'Buckeye Jim' and then sing 'The Grey Goose,' 'Frog Went a-Courtin',' 'Mister Rabbit,' 'The Boll Weevil,' 'Old Blue,' 'The Ground Hog,' and other American songs about animals. Then it will be clear that 'Buckeye Jim' has a special unearthly quality, a child's imagining wrapped round with the haze of sweet blue hills. Everybody wonders about the birthplace and condition of 'Buckeye Jim,' but not a trace has been found, not even far up the deepest hollow or across the highest hill of the Southern mountain country." (John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, Best Loved American Folk Songs, Grosset & Dunlop, 1947, p. 4)

~Masato

Subject: Buckeyed Jim: Oddest lullaby I've heard
From: CapriUni
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 01:40 AM

I first heard this song sung by Ann Mayo Muir, on a Bok/Muir/Tricket album (the name of which not only escapes me -- it has run hell-for-leather over the hills) The version she sang is very close to the version in the Kids DT here.

The subject matter is far from soothing as lullabies go -- especially in the last two verses, what with with old women keeling over into water troughs and dying, and birds spitting at each other.

Then, I found another version in the Grown-ups' DT, here. A little more conventional, as it promises a future life in paradise, and the wonderful freedom of dreams. But still, the imagery is very 'abstract' and other-worldly...

"Blue jay rests in the green bird's eye" is almost as weird as "Blue jay spits in the bluebird's eye" (if not weirder).

Does anybody have any history and or/context for this song?

I'm assuming that the Kids DT version is a spoof of the paradise version. Kids have a wonderful way of poking fun at all the adult sacred cows, and high-blown sentiment.

...Maybe I'll start a thread just for kids' spoofs of adult folk music. But I'll do that tomorrow when I am more awake...