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Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah

DigiTrad:
I'VE BEEN RAILING AT THE WORKLOAD
I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THE RAILROAD


Related threads:
(origins) Origins: I've Been Working on the Railroad (39)
Lyr Req: Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah (20)
(origins) Author: I've Been Working on the Railroad (6) (closed)


Mrrzy 26 Nov 20 - 03:18 PM
GUEST,.gargoyle 26 Nov 20 - 02:33 PM
Steve Gardham 26 Nov 20 - 01:54 PM
Steve Gardham 26 Nov 20 - 01:53 PM
Steve Shaw 26 Nov 20 - 10:02 AM
Steve Gardham 26 Nov 20 - 09:50 AM
Steve Shaw 25 Nov 20 - 06:03 PM
Joe Offer 25 Nov 20 - 05:28 PM
Steve Gardham 25 Nov 20 - 04:38 PM
leeneia 25 Nov 20 - 11:37 AM
Joe Offer 24 Nov 20 - 06:41 PM
leeneia 24 Nov 20 - 12:11 PM
Steve Shaw 23 Nov 20 - 08:46 PM
GUEST,Robert U 23 Nov 20 - 03:04 PM
leeneia 13 Mar 17 - 01:40 PM
GUEST,TaxHack 13 Mar 17 - 01:08 AM
GUEST,lemme a. dollah 06 Oct 16 - 11:55 AM
GUEST,gilgamesh 20 Sep 15 - 12:42 AM
Sanjay Sircar 18 Jan 13 - 07:38 PM
dick greenhaus 18 Jan 13 - 05:49 PM
Steve Gardham 18 Jan 13 - 05:26 PM
GUEST 18 Jan 13 - 02:25 PM
GUEST,leeneia 04 Dec 12 - 03:25 PM
GUEST,matiainn 03 Dec 12 - 09:42 PM
GUEST,josepp 24 Dec 11 - 03:48 PM
GUEST 23 Dec 11 - 07:34 PM
GUEST,leeneia 18 Dec 11 - 05:09 PM
GUEST 18 Dec 11 - 08:58 AM
GUEST,Tizmarelda 18 Nov 11 - 02:30 PM
GUEST,leeneia 18 Nov 11 - 08:26 AM
GUEST,leeneia 17 Nov 11 - 06:00 PM
GUEST,Andrea 17 Nov 11 - 02:53 PM
GUEST,rusty 15 Nov 09 - 03:08 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 18 Oct 09 - 01:14 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 15 Oct 09 - 09:33 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 15 Oct 09 - 08:42 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 15 Oct 09 - 08:37 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 15 Oct 09 - 07:19 PM
GUEST,Bob Coltman 15 Oct 09 - 04:35 PM
GUEST,Bob Coltman 15 Oct 09 - 04:12 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 15 Oct 09 - 01:16 PM
Peace 14 Oct 09 - 10:42 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 14 Oct 09 - 10:24 PM
Peace 14 Oct 09 - 10:19 PM
Joe Offer 14 Oct 09 - 10:12 PM
Joybell 14 Oct 09 - 07:37 PM
GUEST,IM AWESOMES 14 Oct 09 - 06:56 PM
olddude 26 Jan 09 - 03:55 PM
olddude 26 Jan 09 - 02:32 PM
Jim Dixon 26 Jan 09 - 07:48 AM
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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Nov 20 - 03:18 PM

I love this place.

Great limericks.

Still snickering over Someone's in my sister's vagina, too.

If adults want to find hidden meanings in straightforward lyrics, they sure can, and it becomes a projective test, like a Rorschach. One gets more info about the poster than about the song!

A spammer has decided to try to occupy this thread. If you wish to post musical content, ask a moderator to reopen it for you. ---mudelf


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 26 Nov 20 - 02:33 PM

The dead-link reference above ( while not truely germane to the thread ) Santa dancing with Mother Goose took me on a wild ride through the art works of Thomas Nast. A fun hours diversion. (posting from 24 Dec 2011

A current link to the illustration is :

https://secure-images.rarenewspapers.com/ebayimgs/8.19.2010/image026.jpg

Sincerely,
Gargole

gobble, gobble gobble


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Nov 20 - 01:54 PM

Oops, sorry, wrong Dinah











100 he he!


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Nov 20 - 01:53 PM

That famous young lady called Dinah
Whose dad did his best to confine her
Took poison and died
yes 'twas suicide,
So it's not very nice to malign her.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 20 - 10:02 AM

I couldn't resist, a great limerick with the word Dinah in it and a thread about a Dinah song....I'm only human! Come ON!


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Nov 20 - 09:50 AM

FWIW, I though the wit outclassed and obscured the obscenity, Steve.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Nov 20 - 06:03 PM

Rule 2, Dick Gaughan's sadly-defunct forum (not defunct because of this rule):

No anonymous members.
It is a requirement of forum membership that you let the other members know who you are. There is not a single good reason in a forum of this kind for anonymity. If you are normally known by a nickname, by all means use it here; my birth name was Richard but the only people who ever use that are my parents (both dead) and my two sisters and their children. The no-anonymity rule is not here to check people's birth certificates, it is simply so that we all know who we're talking to and the risk of anonymous trolling is reduced. As said, by all means use a nickname on posts but please put your real name in your member profile and you will be asked to give it when registering.


Steve (now regretting rude limerick, but at least you know who I am)


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Nov 20 - 05:28 PM

We have various Guests who drop into threads and post what they contend to be proof of the perverted sexual implications of this song or that. There indeed hidden or not-so-hidden sexual implications in some songs, but perhaps not so many as our Guests would have us believe.
I suspect trolling, likely from one person using a variety of identities.
Joe


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Nov 20 - 04:38 PM

Old Joe as given above from English broadsides was written by Frank. M. Brower in 1844. It has 7 stanzas but doesn't have the chorus of 'Somebody in de kitchen wid Dinah' which was a separate song. The original chorus was:

Old Joe (instrumental)
Old Joe (repeat instrumental)

Old Joe kickin up behind an before,
An de young gall kicken up behind ole Jo (long instrumental)

There appears to be no evidence presented to conclusively say that there is any hidden meaning in either song. The banjo was the prime instrument of the Minstrel troupes. It is at least 50% certain that the song is literally simple and straightforward.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Nov 20 - 11:37 AM

I agree, Joe.

The song appears in an 1898 songbook from Princeton. It's probably a medley, as described one post above, of little-known songs of the time, and I like to think that it was sung in a show by handsome Princeton boys.

For people unfamiliar with early music, the name Carmina Princetonia is an evocation of 'Carmina Burana', a medieval songbook.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 06:41 PM

You know, I don't really care about hidden meanings and past racial implications and double entendres, except for my historical curiosity about the history of the song. It doesn't move me to make any moral judgments about the song whatsoever. In the condition the song has been all of my 72 years, it's just a fun song and it's good to sing with children.
I have never had any qualms of conscience about singing this song, and I never will.

-Joe-


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: leeneia
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 12:11 PM

When I was junior-high age, our music book had at least two medleys of popular songs of old, probably Tin Pan Alley Tunes. These medleys consisted of the best parts of the old songs, strung together like beads on the necklace.

I think "I've been Working on the Railroad" is a medley of two or three songs put together, just like the medleys we sang in school. The Dinahs are entirely different things. The first Dinah is a locomotive and the second is a woman in a kitchen.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 08:46 PM

There was a young lady called Dinah
With a music box in her vagina
All the boys they had larks
To the sweet sound of Bach's
Toccata and fugue in D minor


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,Robert U
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 03:04 PM

Jeez! All this trouble spent on this lyric. C'mon already.   Someones in the kitchen with Dinah strummin' on the old banjo. How much brain power do you need to figure out what that banjo is- strummin' away in the kitchen with Dinah?   Well, I'll give you a hint... It's not a banjo that's bein' strummed.    With Dinah.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Mar 17 - 01:40 PM

Save time, TaxHack. Hit Ctrl+F, put "plink" in the box that appears, and your computer will tell you if the word occurs in the thread or not.

I can see how a teacher could use this technique to entertain the kids and teach about instruments. Have them imitate a violinist and sing "fee fi, diddley." Then play a banjo with "plink plank". Then a flute with "tweet, tweet." And so on till the final bell rings.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,TaxHack
Date: 13 Mar 17 - 01:08 AM

Read all this looking for lyrics that ended with
Plink plank plinketty plank plunk (instead of fee, if...)
This is how my mom learned the song in school in the 30's


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,lemme a. dollah
Date: 06 Oct 16 - 11:55 AM

I know the old joe parts by a diffeant tune. I hate to say it but also thought there may be a hidden story there. Wanna get a Gun (phalic) and go shoot a Bear (furry). " says she old joe that game wont do. Joe got mad he busted his shoe. " Then Joe goes home where " his old wife laughed and childrens grinned. to see old joe come back again"


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,gilgamesh
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 12:42 AM

it refers to the biblical story of Dinah being raped in the kitchen. the old banjo is a reference to the male genitals. 'the horn' in Shakespeare's time is a reference to the penis. 'to fiddle' is a reference to masturbation, as in 'Nero fiddled while Rome burned'


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Sanjay Sircar
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 07:38 PM

1. Alice-in-Wonderland's "Dinah" came from "Villikins and his Dinah" ("Villikins" as in Sam Weller's father's pronunciation) which was still in singbooks till the 1940s, but even in the colonies, "Dinah" did hve US-"coloured" overtones for some time. Wasn't the Bobbsey Twins' cook, who spoke in minstrelsy-diction right up to the end of the 1960s, caled that? (For thread drift: there is a Parsee [Zoroastrian] name" Dina", which in the interests of being whitened up mutated via "Dinah" to "Diana", asdid their "Rodah" into "Rhoda.]

2. A medley that still *looks* and *feels* like a medley is different in kind from something that started off as a medley, but then, consciously or by thoughtless association of similar diction/rhythm, became a homogenous unit (i.e. seen/thought to be such), despite any visible-upon-inspection fissures between parts (different "Dinahs" in consecutive sections). No?

3. If anyone is interested, there was an "Archie" comic in the 1960s in which the boys "working on the railroad" and singing the song, was depicted as them playing with a toy railway.

[4. If any expert on black-and-white minstrel images can give me pointers to illustrations, US or UK, which specifically resemble those in the work of Helen Bannerman, I would be most grateful, but pls PM me. I do not want to muddy this thread or introduce non-music into it.]

Sanjay Sircar


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 05:49 PM

Anyone remember Mark Twain's comment on science--"I like Science . where else can you reap such a rich harvest of speculation from such a meagrer collection of facts?" (or words to thet effect---i'm quoting from memory)
Mr. Clemens obviously hadn't encountered folklore.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 05:26 PM

Wow! What an amazing and inventive thread!

Q the Bodl is not infallible when it comes to dates. We're working in on it currently. That 1834 date must be later. If it's Walker it's most likely printed by Walker Junior who was obviously printing later.

As those with greater knowledge than creative ability have said, this is a MINSTREL piece. Minstrel pieces were generally very basic and simple and rarely had any hidden meaning, although as someone has suggested it could easily have been adapted as an underground piece.

Also the enormous popularity of the Minstrel troupes from 1840 onwards meant that as soon as the current popstars brought out their latest piece, a multiplicity of adaptations hit the streets and the stage. It shouldn't be that difficult to find the earliest version.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 02:25 PM

You have obviously never heard of the bible story involving Dinah being raped by shechem, that someone in the kitchen is Shechem, and Dinah is getting her banjo strummed . . .


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Dec 12 - 03:25 PM

Thanks for the information, Josepp. That was interesting.

In a more modern time, my brother's kids used to love to sing a song called "Singing in the Kitchen" while their daddy played guitar for them.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,matiainn
Date: 03 Dec 12 - 09:42 PM

Stop hack the program!!!


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 24 Dec 11 - 03:48 PM

The song ties minstrelsy and mumming plays together. Mumming plays were held in people's kitchens and so were the original minstrel entertainments as Thomas Rice's "Clare de Kitchen" (1832) would demonstrate. So someone being in the kitchen with Dinah strumming a banjo is another reference. A black minstrel performer and writer named James Bland ("Golden Slippers") wrote a piece in 1880 called "Dancing on de Kitchen Floor." One verse goes:

Oh, the darkies all will have a jubilee
Such a gathering there never was before
Oh, happy everyone will be
As we dance upon the kitchen floor

There is an 1890 stereo-card called "Dancing in the Kitchen" showing five men—all in blackface, two dressed as women—singing and dancing in a kitchen. One man plays a banjo and the other, in suit and top hat, plays a fiddle. The fiddler is the only one seated.

In the Nast engraving below, we see Santa dancing with Mother Goose. We also see the cat with a fiddle, the little dog laughing, the cow jumping over the moon, the dish and spoon cavorting together but the whole thing is portrayed as a minstrel performance and appears to be going on a kitchen.

http://imagehost.vendio.com/preview/ha/haats/HW1880P1977.jpg


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Dec 11 - 07:34 PM

Yes I agree. Herb Gusset has not enjoyed popular acclaim and his spelling does in fact suck.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 05:09 PM

It sounds like Herb Gusset's folklore is about as accurate as his spelling.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 08:58 AM

The origins behind the song are sexual. Dinnah is actually a contraction of 'down there', 'the ole banjo' refers to the male sexual organs (as in Banjo string). 'In the kitchen' refers to the female genitalia. Hence over time the phrase 'somones in the kitchen going down there' has migrated to 'in the kitchen with Dinnah.'
See Herb Gusset's book 'folk lore songs and tails explained'.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,Tizmarelda
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 02:30 PM

I have heard a story completely different from anything mentioned here. There is the song "Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah" and another, more boring song that we don't hear too often, called, "No one in the house but Dinah". These songs were used as codes during the Underground Railroad. If they heard "Someone's in the kitchen", they knew to stay hidden and not come out, because the house had people in it that may turn over the slaves. If they heard "No one in the house", then they knew it was safe to enter.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 08:26 AM

All this means, of course, that the Dinah who's in the kitchen has nothing to do with the Dinah who's supposed to blow her horn. Two different songs.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 17 Nov 11 - 06:00 PM

Somebody probably said this already, but 'I been working on the railroad' was a song sung at a musical revue at Princeton. It was probably a medley, produced by stitching together scraps of popular songs of the time.

When I was in the 7th and 8th grades (not in the same era as the Princeton boys, mind you) we had several such medleys in our songbooks, and we enjoyed them a lot. When my nieces were in grade school, they liked to hear me sing them.

I wonder if today's kids get to sing any medleys.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,Andrea
Date: 17 Nov 11 - 02:53 PM

Dinah has a modern meaning for my family. We grew up singing the song at various family situations, but after we got a whistling teapot, we refer to Dinah as our teapot. "Go put Dinah on." means to put the teakettle on the stove to heat up. We sing the "someone's in the kitchen with Dinah...." as a reference to company. So........add this to your history lesson.

Things become fungible over enough time. Our early American History will soon become myth as in Robin Hood and Camelot levels if we don't educate and continue without being always so politically correct.

Here's something to banter about and speculate upon.....Origins of songs should not be bastardized. If only the early song masters and minstrels could have copyrights to what we carelessly toss about. Eenie, Meenie, Mynie, Moe, a phrase that was traded to "tiger by his toe" was switched to be politically correct. If the period it existed for is extinct, then maybe the song should be too or used only as in depth education for the history lessons on the developemet of the world. Clementine seems to have survived with better results. Go figure. Good luck. Is anyone researching this with the music departments of any university or corporate history libraries for journals by people like the Gershwin's or Copelands?

Think about it. Think about it. I would love to have the ORIGINAL words, unbastardized and notated as to meaning, too. So-where do we go for the truth???


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,rusty
Date: 15 Nov 09 - 03:08 PM

The song comes to me from somewhere in my past, I have no recollection but after the fe fi stuff I remember this.
She's my
one black
two black
shoe shine
shoe black
chocolate to the bone
if you see that gal
comin'
down the street
better leave that gal alone
she's got eyes like diamonds
teeth like pearls
guys don't cha mess
with that girl
she's my
one black
two black
shoe shine
shoe black
chocolate to the bone


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Oct 09 - 01:14 PM

refresh


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Subject: Lyr. Add: DERE'S SOME ONE IN DE HOUSE WID DINAH
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 09:33 PM

Lyr. Add: DERE'S SOME ONE IN DE HOUSE WID DINAH

Ole Joe came to de garden gate,
He couldn't get in kase he com'd too late;
So he knocked at de door a terrible low,
I wants to come in says this black Joe.

[Chorus after each verse]
Who's dere? Ole Joe.
What de Joe! yes, de Joe,
Ole Joe kickin' up behin' an before,
De yaller Gal kickin' up behind Ole Joe.

Dere's someone in de house wid Dinah,
Dere's some one in de house, I know,
Dere's some one in de house wid Dinah
Playing on de ole banjo.

Den Dinah soon cum to de door,
Now what you want? for I tell you afore
You may put on him longtail blue an go,
I'll hab noting more to do wid you, Ole Joe.

I know an Ole Nig what am taller than you,
For to get up up de church to tie him shoe;
I nebber in my life knew dat you did so,
So don't yu come anigh me, Ole Black Joe!

I'd run a hundred miles, a berry long way,
To see you Dinah an at your feet to lay,
Him heart and him money, for him rich you know,
Says Dinah, what I care! be off Ole Joe!

Oh berry bell, Miss Dinah! if dat be all,
I'll marry some nice Yaller Gal, I will next fall,
But if I cotch de Nigger that cause dis woe,
I'll make him feel de arm of Ole Black Joe.

Dinah more in evidence in this version, but it still seems cobbled together.
J. Forth (Pocklington), no date, Harding B20(295), Bodleian Collection.


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Subject: Lyr. Add: Old Joe (minstrel)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 08:42 PM

Lyr. Add: Old Joe
c. 1834

Ole Joe sat at the garden-gate,
He couldn/t get in, for it was too late;
He up wid him foot, and kick'd wid him toe;
"I want to come in," cried Ole black Joe.
"Who's dere?"- "Ole Joe?" - "What de Joe?"
"Yes, de Joe- Ole Joe, kicking up behind and before,
The yellow girl kicking up behind Ole Joe."

[Chorus, after each verse]
There's some one in de house wid Dinah,
There's some one in de house, I know;
There's some one in de house wid Dinah,
Playing on de ole banjo.

Out came Dinah.- "What you doing dere?"
"I want your gun to shoot dat bear."
"Stand back, nigger, dat game won't do."
Joe got so wild, dat he burst his shoe.

Now early de next morn-
Joe went in de fields to hoe some corn;
He worked so hard that he got it done.
He finished all by de smash of de sun.

The whisky got in Joe's head
He staggered and fell down under a shed,
He was taken home and put to bed,
In three months after, poor Ole Joe was dead.

Dinah definitely a person.
One of several versions in the Bodleian Collection, the earliest with a closing date of 1834.
This seems to be a reworked version, put together from earlier songs/versions.
Ole (Old) Joe, Harkness, Preston;
Harding B11(2755); c. 1840-1866.


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Subject: Lyr. Add: Old Joe (minstrel)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 08:37 PM


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 07:19 PM


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 04:35 PM

Oh yes, and as to the imputation of racism re Dinah —

To say the name is associated with black women is only part of the truth. Fact is, Dinah, rare now, was a common name in bygone days (uh, 20th century) for both white and black.

When the very white Frances Rose Shore took the stage name Dinah. it certainly didn't hurt her marketability in any part of America. She became a wildly popular singer, one of the few former band warblers ever to headline her own TV show.

Bob


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 04:12 PM

I, too, disbelieve the metaphorical interpretation.

"I've Been Workin' on the Railroad" is demonstrably the joining together into a medley of at least two songs.   "Levee Song" is a third, if you use that, in the old style, to introduce it. And if you use "Goodnight Ladies" to end it, as has been done by college singing groups for a century or so, that's four songs.

Medley. Not a single song. That more or less removes the need to think a banjo means a shovel, Dinah is the horn, the engine, the nearby cotton gin, the hotel downtown, or any of that. She's a real woman, and she's got a working role in the Dinah song, which (to repeat) is separate and not originally part of the Workin' on the Railroad song at all.

1.   It seems clear that Dinah is cooking in a real kitchen, perhaps a shanty kitchen near the track.

2. Seems plausible that she may be cooking for railroad workers.

3. She may very well be amorous, keeping company with somebody who's hanging around the kitchen, and that's slowing up the meal, which is why the horn is late in blowing.

4. The horn she blows is the well-known dinner horn, not unlike a foghorn on a ship, audible at a considerable distance. When she blows it, dinner's ready. Or lunch. Or breakfast. Till she blows it, it ain't.

Gosh, Dinah seems complex enough without turning her into something industrial. Bet she wouldn't have stood for it if she could post a reply here.

I can't think of much good to say for medleys. They disrespect the songs they contain, which ought to be worthy of singing entire, or why were they songs in the first place. And when people forget their origins and tend to think they are a single song, confusion results ... as above.

End of rant, grrr grrr.

All hail to Dinah. And to that song about her, which I wish we knew more of.

Bob


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 01:16 PM

das walross (walroß) ist dicklich! =the walrus is corpulent.

and everyone should know that dinah is where one puts on the nosebag.

joe,
come back from your lighthouse spotting; knock two heads together


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Peace
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 10:42 PM

It's NOT ok to yell
    "BUT!!!! WHO WAS ACTUALLY IN THE KITCHEN WITH DINAH? OR IS IT SOMEONE WE DON'T EVEN KNOW? AND DINAH IS NOT A FREAKING TRAIN!!!! OMG!!!! TRAINS ARE COOL BUT DINAH IS NOT ONE. DINAH GETS LOVE IN THE KITCHEN AND I DON'T THINK TRAINS CAN DO SUCH THINGS. DINAH IS AN ENSLAVED AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN. TRUTH. DINAH IS A TRAIN. FALSE.

    ALSO BANJOS ARE NOT FRYING PANS AND STRUMMING DOES NOT EQUAL FRYING GOOD EATS IN THE DINNER CAR OF THE TRAIN THAT PEOPLE SEEM TO THINK IS NAMED DINAH.

    ALSO I MAKE WONDERFUL SENTENCES!

    K

    THANKS

    BYE

    ALSO GUTEN TAG! DAS WALROSS IST DICKLICH!

    THE END

    <3 IM AWESOMES!!! "

in a crowded theatre.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 10:24 PM

Someone has been drinking the diesel fuel.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Peace
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 10:19 PM

Decipher it and let us know, us know.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 10:12 PM

Oy, so what do I do with THAT one?

-Joe-


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: Joybell
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 07:37 PM

Ah! the richness of the Mudcat community.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: GUEST,IM AWESOMES
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 06:56 PM

But! Who was actually in the kitchen with Dinah? Or is it someone we don't even know? And Dinah is not a freaking train! OMG! Trains are cool but Dinah is not one. Dinah gets love in the kitchen and I don't think trains can do such things. Dinah is an enslaved African American woman. Truth. Dinah is a train. False.

Also banjos are not frying pans and strumming does not equal frying good eats in the dinner car of the train that people seem to think is named Dinah.

Also I make wonderful sentences!

K

Thanks

Bye

Also Guten Tag! Das Walross ist dicklich!

The end

<3 im awesomes!


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: olddude
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 03:55 PM

Heard old timers call the diner car dinah (for dynamite)
cause the food gave you the revenge.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
From: olddude
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 02:32 PM

It about a train
Dinah is the Diner Car


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Subject: Lyr Add: DERE'S SOME ONE IN DE HOUSE WID DINAH
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 07:48 AM

These lyrics and tune are given in Davidson's Universal Melodist By George Henry Davidson (London: G. H. Davidson, 1853):


DERE'S SOME ONE IN DE HOUSE WID DINAH
As Sung by the Ethiopian Serenaders.

[First 4 verses essentially the same as the Bodleian version OLD JOE quoted by Q above at 12 Nov 04 - 08:24 PM.]

5. Ole Joe was a nice young man,
He used to ride ole dobbin Dan;
But he sent him spinning down de hill,
And I calculate he lies dere still.
                      Ole Joe, &c.


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