Blow The Man Down

Blow the Man Down originated in the Western Ocean sailing ships. The tune could have originated with German emigrants, but it is more likely derived from an African-American song Knock a Man Down. Blow the Man Down was originally a halyard shanty. A variant of this is The Black Ball Line (with a more positive view of the Blackball Line as well).

Western Ocean Law was Rule with a Fist. “Blow” refers to knocking a man down with fist, belaying pin or capstan bar. Chief Mates in Western Ocean ships were known as “blowers,” second mates as “strikers” and third mates as “greasers.”

There are countless versions of Blow the Man Down. The one here is from the Burl Ives Songbook and tells of the Blackball Line. The Black Ball Line was founded by a group of Quakers in 1818. It was the first line to take passengers on a regular basis, sailing from New York, Boston and Philadelphia on the first and sixteenth of each month. The Blackball flag was a crimson swallow-tail flag with a black ball.

The ships were famous for their fast passage and excellent seamanship. However, they were also famed for their fighting mates and the brutal treatment of seamen. (Western Ocean seamen were called “Packet Rats”). Many ships bore the name “bloodboat.” Most of the seamen hailed from New York or were Liverpool-Irish.

By 1880 the sailing ships were being replaced by steamers and the packets entered other trades or were sold.

Thanks to www.contemplator.com for this research.

Lyrics:
[C] Come all ye young fellows that follow the sea,
To my way [Am] haye, [Dm] blow the man [G7] down,
And pray pay attention and listen to me,
Give me some time to [C] blow the man down.

I’m a deep water sailor just in from Hong Kong,
to my way haye, blow the man down,
if you’ll give me some grog, I’ll sing you a song,
Give me some time to blow the man down.

‘Twas on a Black Baller I first served my time,
to my way haye, blow the man down,
And on that Black Baller I wasted my prime,
Give me some time to blow the man down.

‘Tis when a Black Baller’s preparing for sea
to my way haye, blow the man down,
You’d split your sides laughing at the sights that you see.
Give me some time to blow the man down.

With the tinkers and tailors and soljers and all
to my way haye, blow the man down,
That ship for prime seaman on board a Black Ball.
Give me some time to blow the man down.

‘Tis when a Black Baller is clear of the land,
to my way haye, blow the man down,
Our Boatswain then gives us the word of command
Give me some time to blow the man down.

“Lay aft,” is the cry,”to the break of the Poop!
to my way haye, blow the man down,
Or I’ll help you along with the toe of my boot!”
Give me some time to blow the man down.

‘Tis larboard and starboard on the deck you will sprawl,
to my way haye, blow the man down,
For “Kicking Jack” Williams commands the Black Ball.
Give me some time to blow the man down.

Pay attention to order, now you one and all,
to my way haye, blow the man down,
For right there above you flies the Black Ball.
Give me some time to blow the man down.

Old Joe Clark

This is another song that I learned at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. The song originated in Irish Creek, on the Blue Ridge Parkway near South River Virginia in the early 1800s. Joe Clark had a daughter who jilted her lover. The young man is said to have written the song out of spite and jealousy.
Lyrics:
Old Joe Clark

[G] Old Joe Clark’s a fine old man
Tell you the reason why
He keeps good likker ’round his house
Good old [F] Rock and [G] Rye

[G] Fare ye well, Old Joe Clark
Fare ye well, I [F] say
[G] Fare ye well, Old Joe Clark
I’m a [F] going [G] away

Old Joe Clark, the preacher’s son
Preached all over the pain
The only text he ever knew
Was High, low, Jack and the game

Old Joe Clark had a mule
His name was Morgan Brown
And every tooth in that mule’s head
Was sixteen inches around

Old Joe Clark had ayellow cat
She would neither sing or pray
She stuck her head in the butermilk jar
And washed her sins away

Old Joe Clark had a house
Fifteen stories high
And every story in that house
Was filled with chicken pie

I went down to Old Joe’s house
He invited me to supper
I stumped my toe on the table leg
And stuck my nose in the butter

Now I wouldn’t marry a widder
Tell you the reason why
She’d have so many children
They’d make those biscuits fly

Sixteen horses in my team
The leaders they are blind
And every time the sun goes down
There’s a pretty girl on my mind

Eighteen miles of mountain road
And fifteen miles of sand
If ever travel this road again
I’ll be a married man

Away Rio

On December 1, 2007 the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago celebrated its 50th anniversary. This is a song that I learned there 50 years ago. I love sea chanteys and this is one of my favorites! American sailors who sang this disdained any pronunciation other than “Ry oh.”
Lyrics:
[E] Have you ever been out on the [B7] Rio [E] Grande?
Away Rio
It’s [A] there that the [E] river runs down [B7] golden [E] sand
And we’re bound for the [B7] Rio [E] Grande

CH

[E] Away [B7] boys [E] away
Away Rio
So [A] fare ye [E] well my [B7] bonny young [E] girl
And we’re bound for the [B7] Rio [E] Grande

It’s pack up your sea chest and get under way
Away Rio
The girls we are leaving can take half our pay
And we’re bound for the Rio Grande

CH

Oh the anchor is weighed and the sails they are set
Away Rio
The maidens we’re leaving we’ll never forget
And we’re bound for the Rio Grande

CH

Sing good bye to Sally and sue
Away Rio
And all who are listening, it’s good bye to you
And we’re bound for the Rio Grande

O Come All Ye Faithful

In keeping with the Folk Den tradition, this is a Christmas song for December. I have wonderful memories of singing this at my grandparents’ house in Chicago with my family in the mid 50s. My grandmother and grandfather would sit at the piano and play together and we would all harmonize, while recording it on a 78 rpm vinyl disc recorder. The melody is truly captivating. Merry Christmas 2007!
Lyrics:
G] O come, all ye [D] faithful, [G] joyful and triumphant, [D]
[Em] Come ye, [D] O come ye, to [Bm] [A] Bethlehem [D]
[G] Come and [D] behold Him, [Em] born the King of [D] angels;

[G] O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
[C] O come, let us [D] adore [C] Him,
[G] Christ [D] the [G] Lord.

True God of true God, Light from Light Eternal,
Lo, he shuns not the Virgin’s womb;
Son of the Father, begotten, not created;

O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation;
Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above!
Glory to God, all glory in the highest;

O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

Child, for us sinners poor and in the manger,
We would embrace Thee, with love and awe;
Who would not love Thee, loving us so dearly?

O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born this happy morning;
Jesus, to Thee be glory given;
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.

O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

Old Blue


Blue Dog Painting by George Rodrigue

We recorded Old Blue on Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde in back 1968. I’d heard it performed live by Gibson and Camp at the Gate of Horn in Chicago in 1961 and had always loved it. There’s a version by Jim Jackson on the Harry Smith Anthology but it’s completely different, a lot more of a blues.

When I sing this in concert I ask the audience to clap along, following an unusual pattern. It’s fun to hear them get the syncopation right. But someone always claps in the wrong place and makes everybody laugh.

Lyrics:
Old Blue (trad.)

[D] Well I had an old dog and his name was Blue
Yes I had an old dog and his [A] name was [D] Blue
Well I had an old dog and his name was Blue
I bet you five dollars he’s a [A] good dog [D] too

Old Blue chased a possum up a holler limb
Blue chased a possum up a holler limb
Blue chased a possum up a holler limb
The possum growled, Blue whined at him

[D] Bye Bye [Bm] Blue, [G] you good dog [D] you
Bye Bye [Bm] Blue, you [G] good dog [D] you

When old Blue died he died so hard
He shook the ground in my back yard
We lowered him down with a golden chain
and every link we called his name

My old Blue was a good old hound
You’d hear him holler miles around
When I get to heaven first thing I’ll do
is grab my horn and call for Blue

The Byrds “Dr.Byrds And Mr.Hyde”
Columbia Records 1968″

The Ballad of the Boll Weevil


Sharecropper working with one-horse plow,
Green County, Georgia, July 1937.
Photo by Dorothea Lange, Farm Security Administration

This is a fairly new folk song. The Boll Weevil didn’t come to Texas from Mexico until around 1900. Sharecroppers who sang this song took delight in identifying with this nearly indestructible insect. It gave them great hope!

Barry McGuire was visiting the Folk Den and we sang The Ballad of the Boll Weevil together, trading verses. McGuinn & McGuire – sit and sing by the fire. To read more about Barry McGuire’s visit, check out Roadie Report 30

Lyrics:
The Ballad of the Boll Weevil

[G] The Boll Weevil is a little black bug come from Mexico they say
[C] All the way from Texas, just a-lookin’ for a place to [G] stay
[D7] Just a-lookin’ for a home, [G] just a-lookin’ for a home
[C] Just a-lookin’ for a home, [G] just a-lookin’ for a home
[D7] Just a-lookin’ for a home, [G] just a-lookin’ for a home

The first time I saw the boll weevil he was sitting in the square
The next time I saw the boll weevil he had his whole family there
Just a-lookin’ for a home (X6)

The farmer took the boll weevil and put him in the hot hot sand
The boll weevil said “This is mighty hot but I’ll stand in it like a man”
This’ll be my home (X6)

The farmer took the boll weevil and put him in a lump of ice
The weevil said to the farmer ” Man! This is mighty cool and nice”
This’ll be my home (X6)

The boll weevil said to the farmer “You can ride that Ford machine
But when I get through with your cotton field you won’t buy no gasoline
You won’t have no home” (X6)

The merchant got half the cotton the boll weevil got the rest
He didn’t leave that farmer’s wife but one old cotton dress
And it was full of holes (X6)

The Boll Weevil is a little black bug come from Mexico they say
All the way from Texas just a-lookin’ for a place to stay

Fair and Tender Ladies

This version of “Fair and Tender Ladies” was recorded at New York’s Bottom Line in 1977. Gene Clark and I were on an acoustic tour of the United States. Gene was playing his beautiful Martin D-45 and I was finger picking my Rickenbacker 370 12-string – dripping with compression. Our songs spanned the music of The Byrds, our solo careers and included some traditional material – including this arrangement, which could easily have been on a 1965 Byrds record.
Lyrics:

Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies

Come all ye [D] fair and tender [G] ladies
Take warning [D] how you court your [Em} men
They’re like a [C] star on a summer [Am] morning
They first [C] appear and then they’re [D] gone again

My daddy was a handsome gambler,
He had a chain five miles long,
And on every link a heart does dangle,
Of another maid he’s loved and wronged.

They’ll tell to you some loving story
And they’ll make you think they believe it’s true
But love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away like morning dew.”

Sugar Baby

The New Lost City Ramblers were the first to introduce me to this song in the early 60s in New York City. Mike Seeger of the Ramblers had made friends with Dock Boggs who was famous for recording “Sugar Baby” for Brunswick Records in 1926. The song was eventually included on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music.

Mike gave Boggs the opportunity to come to New York and record again after a long hiatus from the music business. Dock’s style of banjo playing is interesting because he didn’t use the claw hammer approach common to most banjo stylists of Appalachia. Dock used a three finger up-picking technique that was quite unique.

This song also appears on “Harry Smith Connection” sung by Jeff Tweedy, Jay Bennett and me – a compilation CD recorded live at the Wolf Trap Farm in October, 1997

The Harry Smith Connection

Lyrics:
Sugar Baby

Oh I’ve got no sugar baby now
All I can do is to seek peace with you
And I can’t get along this a-way
Can’t get along this a-way

All I can do, I’ve said all I can say
I’ll send it to your mama next payday
Send you to your mama next payday.

I got no use for the red rockin’ chair,
I’ve got no honey baby now
Got no sugar baby now

Who’ll rock the cradle, who’ll sing the song
Who’ll rock the cradle when I’m gone
Who’ll rock the cradle when I’m gone?
I’ll rock the cradle, I’ll sing the song
I’ll rock the cradle when you gone.

It’s all I can do
It’s all I can say,
I will send you to your mama next payday

Laid her in the shade, give her every dime I made
What more could a poor boy do
What more could a poor boy do?

Oh I’ve got no honey baby now
Got no sugar baby now

Said all I can say, I’ve done all I can do
And I can’t make a living with you
Can’t make a living with you

The Coo Coo

“The Coo Coo” is a “folk-lyric” style song, where verses are interchangeable with verses from other folk songs such as “The Wagoner’s Lad,” and “East Virginia,” which are otherwise unrelated. The first verse can also be heard in “Way Down The Old Plank Road” sung by Dave Macon. “The Coo Coo” was originally recorded by Clarence “Tom” Ashley in Johnson City TN November 23, 1929.
This song style possibly developed between 1850 – 1875 in Kentucky.

A British version can be found in Cecil Sharp’s collection: “Folk Songs From Somerset.”

Lyrics:
No chords are given because it’s all in A modal tuning.

The Coo Coo

Gonna build me – log cabin on a mountain so high
So I can – see Julie as she goes on by

Aw the Coo Coo is a pretty bird she warbles as she flies
She never hollers coo coo till the fourth day July

I’ve played cards in England I’ve played cards in Spain
I’ll bet you ten dollars that I’ll beat you next game

Jack of diamonds jack of diamonds I’ve known you from old
Now you’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold

I wish I had a good horse and corn to feed him on
I wish I had Julie to feed him when I’m gone

I’ve played cards in England I’ve played cards in Spain
I’ll bet you ten dollars I’ll beat you this game

Aw the Coo Coo is a pretty bird she warbles as she flies
She never hollers coo coo till the fourth day July

King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki Me O

“King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki Me O” is a version of the old English song “Frog Went A-Courting.” Its first known appearance is in Wedderburn’s Complaynt of Scotland (1548) under the name “The frog came to the myl dur.” There is a reference in the London Company of Stationer’s Register of 1580 to “A Moste Strange Weddinge of the Frogge and the Mouse.” The oldest known musical version is in Thomas Ravenscroft’s Melismata in 1611.

Spaeth has a note claiming that the original version of this was supposed to refer to the Duke of Anjou’s wooing of Elizabeth I of England. If the second known version (1611, in Melismata, also reprinted in Chappell) were the oldest, this might be possible — there are seeming political references to “Gib, our cat” and “Dick, our Drake.” But the Wedderburn text, which at least anticipates the song, predates the reign of Queen Elizabeth by nine years, and Queen Mary by four. If it refers to any queen at all, it would seemingly have to be Mary Stuart; Evelyn K. Wells however, in the liner notes to the LP Brave Boys; New England traditions in folk music, (New World Records 239, 1977) suggests that the original may have been satirically altered in 1580 when it was recorded in the register of the London Company of Stationers, as this would have been at the height of the unpopular courtship.

I first heard this song on the Harry Smith Anthology:
Chubby Parker, “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O” (Columbia 15296D, 1928; on Anthology of American Folk Music, CrowTold01) (Supertone 9731, 1930) (Conqueror 7889, 1931)

Drawing by Iza Trapani

Source: Wikipedia.

Lyrics:
[G] Froggie went a courting and he did [D] ride
[G] King kong kitchie kitchie [D] ki-me-o
[G] With a sword and a pistol by his [D] side
[G] King kong kitchie kitchie [D] ki-me-o [G]

[G] Ki-mo-ke-mo ki-mo-ke
[C] Way down yonder in a hollow [D] tree
[G] An owl and a bat and a bumble [D] bee
[G] King kong kitchie kitchie [D] ki-me-o [G]

He rode ’til he came to miss mousie’s door
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o
And there he knelt upon the floor
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

Ki-mo-ke-mo ki-mo-ke
Way down yonder in a hollow tree
An owl and a bat and a bumble bee
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

He took miss mouse upon his knee
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o
And he said little mouse will you marry me
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

Ki-mo-ke-mo ki-mo-ke
Way down yonder in a hollow tree
An owl and a bat and a bumble bee
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

Miss mouse had suitors three or four
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o
And there they came right in the door
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

Ki-mo-ke-mo ki-mo-ke
Way down yonder in a hollow tree
An owl and a bat and a bumble bee
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

They grabbed mr. frog and began to fight
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o
In the hollowed tree it was a terrible night
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

Ki-mo-ke-mo ki-mo-ke
Way down yonder in a hollow tree
An owl and a bat and a bumble bee
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

Mr. frog brought the suitors to the floor
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o
With the sword and the pistol he showed all four
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

Ki-mo-ke-mo ki-mo-ke
Way down yonder in a hollow tree
An owl and a bat and a bumble bee
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

They went to the park on the very next day
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o
And left on their honeymoon right away
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

Ki-mo-ke-mo ki-mo-ke
Way down yonder in a hollow tree
An owl and a bat and a bumble bee
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

Now they live far off in a hollow tree
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o
Where they now have wealth and children three
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o

Ki-mo-ke-mo ki-mo-ke
Way down yonder in a hollow tree
An owl and a bat and a bumble bee
King kong kitchie kitchie ki-me-o