Lyr Add: Hold de Deal (Af.-Am.)

Subject: Lyr Add: HOLD DE DEAL (Af.-Am.)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 May 05 - 01:09 PM

When I find time, I search the Slave Narratives (Federal Writers Project, 1936-1939) for songs or song titles. Very few interviewers asked about music, but a few songs are there.
Posted some time ago from the same source was "Way Down in de Lonesome Valley," thread 76736: Lonesome Valley

This one probably dates after 1900, similar in type to rhymes and songs collected by N. I. White around 1915.

Lyr. Add: HOLD DE DEAL

Kitty, Kitty died O - o.
Kitty had a man.
Rather kiss a monkey,
Den to kiss a nigger man.
Hold de deal! hold de deal!
I'm gwine to get drunk again.

Nigger on de horseback,
Thought he was de king.
Come along alligator,
En let de nigger in.
Hold de deal! Hold de deal!
I'm gwine to get drunk again.

Hector Smith, ex-slave, Marion Co., SC, interview 1937, Project 1885-(1).
American Memory. http://memory.loc.gov/mesn/144/112108.gif