Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins

Subject: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 04:34 AM

Does anybody know the words to this kids song as sung by Jerry Garcia and David Grisman on ' Not For Kids Only ' it's not quite the same as the one already DT.
Cheers, eric

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Bohdran Killer
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 05:02 AM

Don't have the words but the song is also on the video ' Grateful Dawg ' Jerry and David made beautiful music together.
Killer

Subject: Lyr Add: Jenny Jenkins (Garcia/Grisman)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 05:28 AM

Found at Grateful Dead Lyric And Song Finder.

Jenny Jenkins

Lyrics: Traditional
Music: Traditional

Jerry played this with David Grisman, and recorded it on "Not For Kids Only"

Will you wear white
Oh my dear, oh my dear
Will you wear white, Jenny Jenkins?
No I won't wear white
For the color's too bright

Chorus
I'll buy me a foldy-roldy, tildy-toldy
Seek-a-double, use-a-cozza roll to find me
Roll, Jenny Jenkins, roll

Will you wear green
Oh my dear, oh my dear
Will you wear green, Jenny Jenkins?
No, I won't wear green
It's a shame to be seen

[chorus]

Will you wear blue
Oh my dear, oh my dear
Will you wear blue, Jenny Jenkins?
No, I won't wear blue
For the color's too true

[chorus]

Will you wear yellow
Oh my dear, oh my dear
Will you wear yellow, Jenny Jenkins?
No, I won't wear yellow
For I'd never get a fellow

[chorus]

Will you wear brown
Oh my dear, oh my dear
Will you wear brown, Jenny Jenkins?
No, I won't wear brown
For I'd never get around

[chorus]

Will you wear beige
Oh my dear, oh my dear
Will you wear beige, Jenny Jenkins?
No, I won't wear beige
For it shows my age

[chorus]

Will you wear orange
Oh my dear, oh my dear
Will you wear orange, Jenny Jenkins?
No, orange I won't wear
And it rhymes so there

[chorus]

What will you wear?
Oh my dear, oh my dear
What will you wear, Jenny Jenkins?
Oh what do you care
If I just go bare

[chorus]

Recordings

1993    Not For Kids Only (Garcia/Grisman)
1990s   Grateful Dawg (Garcia/Grisman) [studio remix]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 06:18 AM

Masato that's brilliant.
Many thanks, eric

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 01:36 PM

I learned the same words, basically, from a Decca children's record in 1949. Long before Jerry learned to bar his F chord. There were some notable difference, though -- the bit about beige stands out.

A

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 07:27 PM

Or:

I'll just go bare
With a ribbon in my hair

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 08:04 PM

See also

JENNY JENKINS  - DT file. Collation of two Vermont sets. Tune at midi pages.
JENNIE JENKINS  - DT file. Text from a book. No tune, traditional source not named.

Forum:

Jenny Jenkins  - Details on the Vermont collation. Various other texts, some with tunes.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 03:49 AM

Thanks y'all, I've now got the video ' Grateful Dawg ' it's great to see the king of deadheads singing this wonderful song especially with
ace mando picker David Grisman.
eric

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Flash Company
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 10:24 AM

I think Alan Lomax recorded Liza Cotton singing this, the words sound much as I recall them. (Never did understandthe chorus!)

FC

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: BanjoRay
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 06:59 PM

I remember a version I heard in the sixties had "I won't wear purple, it's the colour of a turtle" etc
Cheers
Ray

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 07:44 PM

I made up a rhyme for, "orange-" I won't wear orange for it's too strange (drag out the word and it almost rhymes!).

The line, "What d'you care if I just go bare," was composed by Susan Reed.

The line, "O, I'll just go bare with a ribbon in my hair!" is my own contribution (is that where you got it, Joe O?)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: JennyO
Date: 17 Mar 04 - 08:33 PM

We were singing this at a session on Tuesday night and came up with some very silly reasons for not wearing colours cos we couldn't remember what the line was supposed to be. We were adding on new colours too. Now I can't remember very much of what we came up with, except "no I won't wear black cos I'd have a heart attack" and "no I won't wear puce cos it's no bloody use". I'm sure there were better ones.

Jenny

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Abby Sale
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 12:12 AM

BanjoRay - usually "color of a turkle." Thought, according to Jean Ritchie, to mean turtle dove. Black is often "color on my back."

Generally, once you run through 5 or 6 "standard" verses, you just improvise whatever color & answer you like. Makes a fine game song. Eg, I'd sing the question and the children, one at a time around the circle, sing the answer. All sing the chorus. Don't see anything wrong with that chorus - makes good sense to me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 05:04 AM

The Lomax recording referred to above is almost certainly that by Estil Ball and his wife Orna from Rugby Virginia, first recorded I believe in 1938 after Lomax had met them at the Galax festival and again in 1959/60 when he re-visited many of his previous sources.

The later recordings are available on the "Southern Journey" 5 cd box set and the original vinyl albums on Atlantic. Plus there are two wonderful cd's by this couple and other members of Orna's family on the Rounder label. Great listening and source for some wonderful songs and guitar picking too.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 04:01 PM

I've heard this song sung by Bill Hinkley & Judy Larson, who were once frequent guests on "A Prairie Home Companion." They would ask the kids in the audience to shout out names of colors, for which they would then "improvise" a rhyme. (I suspect they've performed this song often enough to be prepared for anything, but for entertainment's sake, you've got to pretend it's difficult.)

I remember their rhyme for orange:

"I won't wear orange; it's the color of a door-hinge" – a rusty one, I suppose.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 06:42 PM

Aha! Thanks, Jim! Great rhyme for "orange"!
I do the same with my first graders- they love to play "stump the teacher" with this song! Little do they know I've been teaching this song for so many years there can't be many colors I haven't heard!

Now, anyone got a rhyme for "turquoise"?

Allison

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Allan C.
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 06:51 PM

I don't think I've ever seen anyone have more fun with this than Mudcatters, Vixen and Reynaud (aka "Victim") did when they sang it at one of the Getaways.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 04:15 AM

David Grisman sings " Now orange I'll wear and it rhymes so there "
eric

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From:
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 11:29 AM

I heard this Jennie Jenkins song here in Seoul, S. Korea, and I was a little nurverous because
I couldn't found out the meaning of foldy-roldy, tildy-toldy,
seek-a-double, use-a-cause-a roll-to-find-me-roll.
Would you please tell me the meaning of the above?
Thank you very much!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Compton
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 11:33 AM

I can't help thinking I once heard on a (Welsh) programme "Jilly Jenkins"...or am I dreaming that!!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 11:46 AM

No need to be nervous, it's just nonsense words as used in other children's songs. Nickety Nackety Now Now Now for instance in the Nick Nack Song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: BanjoRay
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 12:01 PM

How about:
I won't wear vermillion
unless I'm riding pillion

I won't wear violet
'till I qualify as a pilot

Ray

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 12:37 PM

The more wide-ranging thread on this song is this one (click). I'd like to add this song to my repertoire, but I haven't been able to get the nonsense line straight. You can't sing a song like this one unless you can sing it well. It loses all its entertainment value if you can't zip through that tongue-twister.
This thread has a discussion of the nonsense verses in songs, but I still don't completely understand the difference between "burden" and "refrain" and "chorus." I think this nonsense line is a "burden," but maybe not.
-Joe Offer-
(e-mail sent to requestor with a list of our various versions of the refrain - I got a nice note of thanks back)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: GUEST,livie
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 08:42 PM

how about
                  No I won't wear yellow
                  For it makes me to mellow

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 03:09 AM

Friends of mine do it as a duet and sing,

' No I won't wear pink,
I'd rather drink ink '

eric

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 03:53 AM

The chorus to Jenny Jenkins is not entirely nonsense. It also contains some good advice which would have been wise a hundred years ago but is now very pertinent to today's environmental concerns.

Seek a double use, or cause, or role

Viz. Make everything you have, or do, serve more than one purpose or have more than one reason. That way you get the best value out of everything and keep waste to a minimum.

The words get "folk processed" and slowly they get corrupted until they are unrecognisable. The examples I generally use to illustrate this are Hey Nonny Nonny No which is an anglicisation of the french "et non, et non et non" basically a chorus of no , no, no. Or another example, Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum. The Yo Ho Ho bit is not laughter or some strange pirate's cry, it is spanish language for "I have gold" anglicised into an unrecognisable form. A pirate would much more likely sing "I have gold and a bottle of rum".

just my toussaints

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: GUEST,Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 04:06 AM

Excellent stuff, Guest, and here's my two cents. Have you got any more of these gems and are they worth a thread of their own?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: Old Roger
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:48 PM

Sorry Steve,

I forgot to log in as Old Roger.

I have some others but it is bedtime now and my brain is shutting up shop.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jun 14 - 01:26 PM

I'd like to have the lyrics to the chorus of Julie Jenkins the Frank Proffitt version if anyone knows them.

Subject: Lyr Add: JULIE JENKINS (from Frank Proffitt)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 03:23 PM

Here's how it sounds to me—my own transcription. Of course there's nothing "official" about this; others may hear it differently.


JULIE JENKINS
As sung by Frank Proffitt on "Frank Proffitt Sings Folk Songs" (Folkways Records [now Smithsonian Folkways] FA 2360, ©1962)

1. You can't wear red, my own true love.
You can't wear red, Julie Jenkins.
Oh, you can't wear red; it's the color of your head,
But I'll get me a polly-lolly, dilly-dolly, servy-to-your-double-rolly bind in the wire with my rope, Julie Jenkins.

2. You can't wear black, my own true love.
Can't wear black, Julie Jenkins.
You can't wear black; it's the color of a sack,
But I'll [etc.]

3. You can't wear purple, my own true love.
You can't wear purple, Julie Jenkins.
Oh, you can't wear purple; it's the color of a turkle,
But I'll [etc.]

4. Oh, you can't wear yeller, my own true love.
You can't wear yeller, Julie Jenkins.
You can't wear yeller; the color's so shaller,
But I'll [etc.]

5. You must, you must wear blue, my own true love.
You must wear blue, Julie Jenkins.
Oh, you must wear blue, for the color is so true,
But I'll [etc.]

[You can see the lyrics as they were printed in the liner notes of the original recording here (PDF). They are a bit different from mine, but no better, IMHO. And they leave out the whole "purple" verse!]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jenny Jenkins
From: GUEST,because the chorus makes sense if you sew
Date: 05 Jul 15 - 10:41 PM

Foldy-roldy is a play on "folderol", meaning useless, added for no reason, trivial.

Pronounced "folly rolly".

"Tilly-tolly" just rhymes.

"Seek a double" meaning extra, as in double.

"Use a cause-a roll a' (of) binding." Again, a little nonsensical syllabic innovation, but ultimately Jenny is simply playing coy, not telling what color dress she'll make to wear a-courtin'.

Binding is material for hems and seams on clothing.

Fun song, and I'm endeavoring to learn it first on my new (old, used) long-neck banjo.