Lyr Req: I'm Satisfied (Mississippi John Hurt)

Subject: Miss. John Hurt, Need 'I'm Satisfied
From:
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 12:34 PM

Need some help with the Mississippi John Hurt tune "I'm Satisfied".

What is she giving to who she pleases? Sounds something like "toetl oh". And - is it a Delta dialect term or just a nonsense word filler.

thanks to anyone who can help.

Yolanda Ortega

Subject: RE: Miss. John Hurt, Need 'I'm Satisfied
From: GUEST,Bob in PDX
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 08:00 PM

I believe it I give my "total all" to who I please.

Subject: RE: Miss. John Hurt, Need 'I'm Satisfied
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 07 Mar 05 - 12:42 AM

On this link (Tink's) they have the song and another two words that apply!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I'm Satisfied (Mississippi John Hurt)
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Aug 07 - 09:45 PM

I read that Tottulo (spelling unknown was the equivalent to a dance card in Hurt's day in the south.

She would agree to dance with whoever she choose. The song is a song of her reaching the age of independance and announcing her intention to use it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I'm Satisfied (Mississippi John Hurt)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 03:39 PM

Tink's Lyrics (referenced above), which was a wonderful and essentially complete collection of MJH lyrics, is no longer available on the Internet. The free web-hosting service he was using is in some kind of transitional state. Let's hope this is temporary, and that Tink will reappear soon, perhaps under a new URL.

The MJH Museum website has a lyrics page:

http://www.msjohnhurtmuseum.com/lyrics.html

...which still includes a link to the late lamented Tink's Lyrics site, and also provides some other links, to individual song lyrics, which are presumably still operable.

When I sing "I'm Satisfied," I am content to let the meaning of the word "toodle-ooh" remain ambiguous and double-entendre-ish. GUEST may or may not have correct information about the word "tottulo," but I have to wonder: what's really going on when someone proposes to sell his/her dance card?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I'm Satisfied (Mississippi John Hurt)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Aug 07 - 10:09 PM

There was a dance called the Todalo. I have been unable to find a description of the dance, but it apparently involved shaking and/or shimmying. Apparently the suggestive nature of the dance led to "todalo" being used as a euphemism for something more explicitly sexual.

But I found some song (or tune) titles:

BALTIMORE TODALO, by Eubie Blake, 1909.

THE DARKEY TODALO: A RAGGEDY RAG, by Joe Jordan, 1910.

TODDLING THE TODALO, by Billy Murray, 1911.

Duke Ellington and his trumpeter James "Bubber" Miley wrote and recorded THE EAST ST LOUIS TOODLE-OO in 1926-27, but the spelling was apparently a printer's error, and should have been "todalo."

Regarding the exact meaning and derivation of "todalo," I've found references to a couple of scholarly articles:

On Toodle-oo, Todalo, and Jenny's Toe by Mark Tucker, in American Music, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring, 1988), pp. 88-91.

…which is a reply to Jenny's Toe Revisited: White Responses to Afro-American Shaking Dances by Chadwick Hansen, in American Music, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring, 1987), pp. 1-19.