Lyr Req: My Sweet Farm Girl (Clarence Ashley)

Subject: Lyr Req: my sweet farm girl Clarence Ashley
From: GUEST,sapote jones
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 12:57 PM

just adore this song and dont currently have a copy of it.. anyone else??

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: my sweet farm girl Clarence Ashley
From: 12-stringer
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 02:44 PM

Go here:

http://www.honkingduck.com/realaudio/stream/A/baza16.ram

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: my sweet farm girl Clarence Ashley
From: Stewie
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 07:53 PM

Meade et alia 'Country Music Sources' note that Tom Ashley heard the song sung by a work gang around 1900.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: my sweet farm girl Clarence Ashley
From: GUEST,bdatki
Date: 14 Feb 03 - 10:57 PM

Tom Ashley is probably my favorite musician of all time. I highly recommend the County Records CD "Greenback Dollar" which has many of his early recordings, including this song, also known as Farm Girl Blues. It has both his solo banjo songs and his work with the Carolina Tar Heels.

    There is also a CD of the Carolina Tar Heels I found somewhere too that has a slightly different version before Tom Ashley joined.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: my sweet farm girl Clarence Ashley
From: Stewie
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 12:18 AM

bdatki,

Can you post the details - label, cat # - of the Carolina Tar Heels CD that you mentioned. I was not aware that their material had been released on CD, apart from individual tracks on compilations.

Thanks,

Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: my sweet farm girl Clarence Ashley
From: Richie
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 12:29 AM

Stewie,

This is an early blues song. Is this one of the earliest blues?

-Richie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: my sweet farm girl Clarence Ashley
From: Stewie
Date: 15 Feb 03 - 02:19 AM

Hi Richie

I wouldn't think so; I have never heard it mentioned in that context. The Meade note is rather tantalising, but rather unsatisfying. It merely indicates that the song is older than the Carolina Tar Heels' 1930 recording. It would be interesting to know what type of 'work gang', Meade was referring to and the nature of the song before Ashley got hold of it. There is no specific mention of the song in Joe Wilson's notes in the booklet accompanying the Ashley 'Greenback Dollar' CD. In his notes to the 1969 Old Homestead Carolina Tar Heels reissue album (Old Homestead Collector's Series OHCS 133), Gerd F. Hadeler wrote: '"Farm Girl Blues' is more in the category of the Negro party blues - characterised by a less intensely introspective lyric, more suited for social entertainment. The words that Walsh and Garley Foster sing are laden with double entendre. This song was later recorded by Ashley and Gwen Foster'.

To me, it sounds more like the comic/doleful songs from the medicine shows whose origin would be impossible to trace and, particularly in the Ashley and Foster recording, there is a strong sense that the style of the performance may have been influenced by Jimmie Rodgers. For me, the song itself, as presented by the Carolinal Tar Heels and Ashley and Foster, does not particularly betray an exclusively black origin.

Regards, Stewie.

Subject: Lyr Add: MY SWEET FARM GIRL (Clarence Ashley)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Mar 03 - 01:57 AM

Transcribed from the sound file at HonkingDuck:

MY SWEET FARM GIRL
(Clarence "Tom" Ashley)

My sweet farm girl, she's the dolly of my pride. (2x)
She knows I know how to keep her satisfied.

So early in the morning, I cut her grass, you bet. (2x)
Pull up the hose, I keep her lawn all wet.

I stoke her fire. I shake her ashes down. (2x)
We eat our breakfast, then we ride on back to town.

I keep her garden all free from the sand weeds. (2x)
I plow her land and then I sow my seeds.

I trim her hedges. I clean out her back yard. (2x)
She loves her daddy because I'm long and hard.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: my sweet farm girl Clarence Ashley
From: BanjoRay
Date: 02 Mar 03 - 11:34 AM

Small niggle - verse 3 is "I close " not "I stoke"
Cheers
Ray

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: my sweet farm girl Clarence Ashley
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Mar 03 - 12:48 PM

OK, Ray, I'll 'fess up. I cheated a bit. I wasn't sure of "close" because I had never heard that usage before. So I also listened to a sound sample of the New Lost City Ramblers singing the same song, which I found at Yahoo! They clearly sing "stoke" instead of "close", and "stoke" made more sense to me, so that's what I wrote. I probably should have explained that in the first place.

So what does it mean to close a fire? Put it out? Bank it? Close the door of the stove?

By the way, did anybody notice the similarity of the imagery between this song and MY HANDY MAN?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: my sweet farm girl Clarence Ashley
From: BanjoRay
Date: 02 Mar 03 - 07:56 PM

I don't know what Tom Ashley means by it, I just know that's what he's singing. I suppose it just means to close off the air supply, but I'm not sure where that would fit in with the double entendres.
Cheers
Ray

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Sweet Farm Girl (Clarence Ashley)
From: bluerabbit10
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 08:10 AM

I remember my dad, used to "stoke" the fire. To me he meant to put a few pieces of wood or coal on top of the fire to keep it going late at night to keep it going thru the nite.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Sweet Farm Girl (Clarence Ashley)
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 11 - 02:38 PM

To close her fire is the same as to damp her fire down. This is done (depending on the kind of stove) either by partially closing the air intake and/or by shutting the damper and/or by banking the fire (heaping ashes on it to slow combustion. To turn one's lover's damper down is a reference that occurs in many early 20th century songs with the widespread use of cast iron ranges (rather than open fireplaces) which have a sheet metal stovepipe and a damper disc with a turn-handle. It is a double entendre meaning to extend the pre-orgasmic state during love-making by slowing down one's movements or by changing position.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Sweet Farm Girl (Clarence Ashley)
From: GUEST,catyronwode
Date: 15 Mar 18 - 01:30 AM

I confess that i am the anonymous "Guest" immediately above, explaining how one closes a fire.

Here's more, seven years later:

I keep her garden all free from the sand weeds.

should be

I keep her garden all free from bugs and weeds.

(Since her grass and garden refer to her pubic hair, the bugs in this case would be crab lice.)

This remains one of the cleverest double entenre lyrics i have ever heard.