Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a three part pancocojams series on examples of African American songs entitled "Shake That Little Foot Sally" (also known as "Shake That Little Foot, Dinah O").

This post provides general information about those songs and showcases several early text (lyrics only) examples of "Shake That Little Foot Sally" (also known as "Shake That Little Foot, Dinah O").

This post also provides information about and one text example of related folk songs with the title "Great Big Taters in the Sandy Land" (and other titles).

Addendum #1 to this post showcases a YouTube sound file of a version of "Shake That Little Foot Sally Ann" (given without transcription).

Addendum #2 to this post provides an excerpt of a Wikipedia article about the name "Dinah" as a generic referent for Black women in 19th century (Southern) United States.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/harry-belafonte-shake-that-little-foot.html for Part II showcases Harry Belafonte's 1964 Folk/Pop performance of the song "Shake That Little Foot, Sally". Part Ii showcases a sound file of Harry Belafonte's 1964 Folk/Pop performance of the song "Shake That Little Foot, Sally". My transcription of the lyrics of this version of that song are included in this post along with explanations about some of those lyrics

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/round-robin-kick-that-little-foot-sally.html for Part III of this series. Part III showcases Round Robin's 1964 R&B song "Kick That Little Foot, Sally". The Addendum to Part III provides information about the Rhythm & Blues dance "the Slauson" which is mentioned in that song's lyrics.

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This post is part of a continuing pancocojams series that showcases American folk songs, rhymes, and minstrel songs that feature the name "Dinah" and/or "Old Aunt Dinah." Click the "Dinah and Old Aunt Dinah songs and rhymes" tag below for other posts in this series.

This post also is part of an ongoing series on African American and Caribbean songs about "Little Sally Ann and Little Sally Waters/Walker" songs and rhymes. Click that tag below for other posts in that series.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the unknown composers of these songs and thanks to the early collectors and documented performers of these songs. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to David "Stringbean" Akeman for his performance of "Shake That Little Foot, Sally Ann" that is featured in this post and thanks to the publisher of this sound file on YouTube.

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GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT & EARLY TEXT (LYRICS ONLY) EXAMPLES OF THESE SONGS "SHAKE THAT LITTLE FOOT, SALLY" (also found as "SHAKE THAT LITTLE FOOT, DINAH O)

Pancocojams Editor: These excerpts are numbered for referencing purposes only. Multiple comments/lyric examples within these excerpts are also numbered for referencing purposes only.

Excerpt #1:
From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=13719

[Pancocojams Editor: This Mudcat folk nusic discussion thread includes additional lyrics/ lyric excerpts for and comments about the folk song "Shake Your Little Foot, Sally". This Mudcat discussion thread also known as "Shake Your Little Foot, Dinah O") as well as lyrics/lyric excerpts, and comments about a newer "Sally Ann" ballad and other "Sally Ann" songs/singing games.]

1. Subject: Lyr Add: SALLY ANN^^
From: Barry Finn
Date: 14 Sep 99 - 11:14 PM

SALLY ANN

Did you ever see a muskrat, Sally Ann
Dragging his slick tail through the sand
Picking his banjo & raising sand
Did you ever see a muskrat, Sally Ann

CH: Ever see a muskrat Sally Ann (2x)
Shift that meal & save the bran
Going to the wedding with Sally Ann
Shake that little foot Sally Ann
You're a pretty good dancer Sally Ann

CH: Shake that little foot Sally Ann (2x)

Make my living in the sandy land
Raise big 'taters in the sandy land
Big mushmelons in the sandy land
Sandy bottom, sandy land

CH: I'm gonna marry you Sally Ann (2x)
Sal's got a meatskin laid away
To grease that wooden leg so they say
Dinah's got a wooden leg so they say
Shake that wooden leg Dinah-o

CH: Shake that wooden leg Dinah, Dinah
Shake that wooden leg Dinah-o

From "Folk Songs Of North America" by Alan Lomax. I gotta say that parts of the last verse to me are quite suspect along with the 3rd verse sounds like it was more than just a floating filler borrowed from "Sandy Land". Anyway, there you go. Barry"

**
2. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sally Ann / Ballad of Sally Anne
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 02:00 AM

..."I think it would be nice to include the text of the Traditional Ballad Index entry.
-Joe Offer-

Sally Anne

DESCRIPTION: "Oh where are you going, Sally Anne? (x3) I'm going to the wedding, Sally Anne. Oh shake that little foot, Sally Anne, (x3), You're a pretty good dancer, Sally Anne.""Did you ever see a muskrat, Sally Ann...." Other verses are equally unrelated.

AUTHOR: unknown

EARLIEST DATE: 1918

KEYWORDS: dancing nonballad marriage courting animal

FOUND IN: US(Ap)*

[...]

RECORDINGS:
Wade Ward, "Sally Ann" [instrumental] (on Holcomb-Ward1)

George Stoneman, "Sally Anne" [instrumental] (on LomaxCD1702)
Frank Blevins & his Tar Heel Rattlers, "Sally Aim [sic]" (Columbia 15765-D, 1927; on LostProv1 as "Sally Ann")

Pete Seeger, "Sally Ann" (on PeteSeeger06, PeteSeegerCD01); Sally Ann" (on PeteSeeger18)
Art Thieme, "Sally Ann" (on Thieme01)

CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Great Big Taters in Sand Land" (tune)

Notes: Lomax says that this is the same melody as the fiddle piece "Sandy Land," in turn related to "Sally Goodin." [But Lomax wasn't a fiddler. The tune is related to "Sandy Land" (actually "Great Big Taters in Sandy Land"), but I draw the line at "Sally Goodin." I'm no fiddler, either, but I've backed up a lot of them. - PJS] Certainly the banal and unrelated verses are what one would expect of a fiddle tune with words added. - RBW

File: SKE63
The Ballad Index Copyright 2002 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.
-snip-
This excerpt has been reformatted for this post to enhance its readability.
This excerpt is from an old version of that site. The current link for "The Ballad Index" is http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/BalladIndexTOC.html. Here's an excerpt from the introduction to that site: The Traditional Ballad Index:
An Annotated Bibliography of the Folk Songs of the English-Speaking World

Version 4.1 • November 25, 2016

"The Traditional Ballad Index is a collaborative effort designed to help people find reference information on folk ballads. It is not itself a source of song texts or of discussion of ballads, although it contains some summary information."...
-snip-
*"Ap" My guess is that "Ap" given above means "Appalachia". According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachia#.27Appalachia.27_as_the_United_States
"Appalachia... is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York to northern Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia.[1] While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle (Newfoundland and Labrador) in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in Alabama, the cultural region of Appalachia typically refers only to the central and southern portions of the range."
-snip-
Appalachian music (particularly folk music from Southern Appalachia in the United States) is sometimes referred to as "Mountain music". It appears to me that many people who use the terms "Appalachian music" and "Mountain music" assume that that music is only from Anglo-Americans. However, such an assumption disregards the fact that Black Americans and Americans of other races have lived and continue to live in Appalachia. That assumption also disregards the fact that a lot of 19th century (and probably earlier) secular folk music crossed "racial boundaries". I chose to refer to "Shake Your Little Foot, Sally" ("Shake Your Little Foot, Dinah O") as African American folk music, but that term presupposes that it is also American folk music, and its unknown composers may not have been (only) Black.

**
3. Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sally Ann
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 01:37 PM

"There is a version in Brown, North Carolina Folklore. Vol. 5, No. 673, music and one verse.
O, where are you going, Sally Ann? (3 times)
I'm going to the wedding, Sally Ann.
O, shake that little foot, Sally Ann, (3 times)
You're a pretty good dancer, Sally Ann.

No data on source or date, but reference is made to SharpK 11 351 No. 240 (jig) and to JAFL 28, 183 and JAFL 41 no. 8 and 59 p. 462."

**
4. Subject: ADD Version: Sally Ann
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 02:23 AM

This isn't much different from the Lomax version Barry Finn posted up top, but I think this version is worth posting, too.
-Joe Offer-

Sally Ann

C Am
Did you ever see a muskrat, Sally Ann?
C G
Pickin' a banjo, Sally Ann,
C
Draggin' his slick tail through the sand?
G C
I'm gonna marry you, Sally Ann.

Chorus:
C
I'm gonna marry you, Sal, Sal,
G C
I'm gonna marry you, Sally Ann.

Going to the wedding, Sally Ann (twice)
Sift that meal and save your bran,
I'm going home with Sally Ann.

Shake that little foot, Sally Ann, (twice)
Great big wedding up, Sally Ann,
I'm going home with Sally Ann.

Pass me the brandy, Sally Ann, (twice)
I'm going 'way with Sally Ann,
Great big wedding up, Sally Ann.


Source The Folk Singer's Wordbook (Fred & Irwin Silber, 1973)
-snip-
Compare Example #1 and this example of "Shake Your Little Foot, Sally" lyrics with certain lyrics for Harry Belafonte's 1964 version of this song. That song is showcased in Part II of this pancocojams series.

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Excerpt #2:
Google Books: Google Book:
Melody Sheet Music Lyrics Midi
edited by Richard Hewlett, Sep 4, 2014 [no page number given]

SHAKE THAT FOOT
Old Aunt Dinah went to town
Riding a billy goat, leading a hound.
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O

Hound dog barked and billy goat jumped
Set Aunt Dinah straddle of a stump
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Shake that little foot , Dinah, O

Old Aunt Dinah, sick to bed
Sent for the doctor, doctor said:
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O

Get up Dinah, you ain’t sick
All you need is a hickory stick
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
Shake that little foot, Dinah, O
-snip-
No source is given for this version and it isn't dated. However, it may be much older than the versions given above. Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/get-up-grandma-you-aint-sick-all-you.html for some information about the "Old Aunt Dinah/sick in bed" lines that dates that rhyme to the 19th century.

Also, African American university professor and folk music collector Thomas W. Talley includes a song about "Aunt Dinah riding a billy goat, leading a hound" in his now classic 1922 collection Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise And Otherwise.

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Excerpt #3:
From http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/great-big-taters-in-sandy-land--version-2-hall.aspx"Great Big Taters in the Sandy Land

Traditional Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi..

[...]

CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes. DATE: Early 1900’s (1934 Lomax version)

OTHER NAMES: "Great Big Taters;""Sandyland;""Raise Big Taters in Sandy Land;""Steve's Tune;""Big Taters in Sandy Land;"

RELATED MELODY: “Sail Away Ladies;” “Sally Ann;""Taters in Sandy Land;"“Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dog Around,” "Better Quit Kickin My Dog Around,""Sail Away Ladies."

[...]

SOURCES: Kuntz: A Fiddler’s Companion (on-line); Lomax-ABFS, pp. 236-237, "Sandy Land”. American Ballads and Folk Songs, MacMillan, Bk (1934), p.236 (Sandy Land) . Traditional Music in America, Folklore Associates, Bk (1940/1965), p 39b Anderson, Jubal. Fiddle Book, Oak, Bk (1967), p 80.

NOTES: "A Major: G Major (W.E. Claunch, Kuntz, Sweet). AEAE or Standard. ABB (Rankin): ABB' (Phillips/Wills): AABB' (Sweet): AABBCC (Phillips/Eck Robertson). The melody is directly related to "Sail Away Ladies" (and thus to "Sally Ann") and some indicate it is merely a variant of that tune, though the title "Great Big Taters" and its variations is considerably disseminated in the South and Old Southwest. Arizona fiddler Kenner C. Kartchner knew a tune by this title in the very odd key of C Major (for this kind of tune), which he learned from Frank Pruitt, about 1900. The title was one of those in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954...

[...]

The “Great Big Tater” tune is the old fiddler's favorite, "Sandy Land" or "Sally Ann" and is also used in the Hound Dog Song (“Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dog Around"). "Sail Away Ladies" is a variant of the song. The song was first recorded as "Great Big Taters in Sandy Land" by Eck Robertson in 1929. It is categorized by Meade under the "Sally Ann" title. Alan Lomax says this is the same tune as "Sally Anne," and close to "Sally Goodin." Paul Stamler, who knows all three as fiddle tunes, concedes a relationship to "Sally Anne" but not "Sally Goodin." The final verse of the American Ballads text is "Sal's Got a Meatskin."

LYRICS:

Great big taters in the sandy land
Great big taters in the sandy land. (Repeat)

Sal had a meat-skin laid away,
Greased my wooden leg every day. (Repeat)

Shake-a that big foot Sally Ann,
Shake-a that big foot Sally Ann. (Repeat) "

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ADDENDUM #1: SHOWCASE VIDEO: Shake That Little Foot Sally Ann - David "Stringbean" Akeman



ClassicCountry1978, Published on Oct 28, 2015
-snip-
This version which is given without transcription isn't the same as those text examples that are given above.

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ADDENDUM #2:Excerpt About the use of the name "Dinah" in 19th century United States
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinah#Symbol_of_black_womanhood
"[Dinah"] Symbol of black womanhood
In 19th-century America, "Dinah" became a generic name for an enslaved African woman.[12] At the 1850 Woman's Rights Convention in New York, a speech by Sojourner Truth was reported on in the New York Herald, which used the name "Dinah" to symbolize black womanhood as represented by Truth:

In a convention where sex and color are mingled together in the common rights of humanity, Dinah, and Burleigh, and Lucretia, and Frederick Douglas [sic], are all spiritually of one color and one sex, and all on a perfect footing of reciprocity. Most assuredly, Dinah was well posted up on the rights of woman, and with something of the ardor and the odor of her native Africa, she contended for her right to vote, to hold office, to practice medicine and the law, and to wear the breeches with the best white man that walks upon God's earth.[12]

Lizzie McCloud, a slave on a Tennessee plantation during the American Civil War, recalled that Union soldiers called all enslaved women "Dinah". Describing her fear when the Union army arrived, she said: "We was so scared we run under the house and the Yankees called 'Come out Dinah' (didn't call none of us anything but Dinah). They said 'Dinah, we're fightin' to free you and get you out from under bondage'."[13] After the end of the war in 1865 The New York Times exhorted the newly liberated slaves to demonstrate that they had the moral values to use their freedom effectively, using the names "Sambo" and "Dinah" to represent male and female former slaves: "You are free Sambo, but you must work. Be virtuous too, oh Dinah!"[14]

The name Dinah was subsequently used for dolls and other images of black women.[15]

Notes:
12. Footnote 3 to "Women's Rights Convention", The New York Herald, October 26, 1850; U.S. Women's History Workshop.
13. Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, The Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938. Library of Congress, 1941.
14. Gutmann, Herbert. "Persistent Myths about the Afro-American Family" in The Slavery Reader, Psychology Press, 2003, p.263.
15. Husfloen, Kyle. Black Americana, Krause Publications, 2005, p.64.
-snip-
It should also be noted that "Dinah" is often given as "old Aunt Dinah" ("ole Aunt Dinah") in 29th century songs (including African American social dance/game songs and Anglo-American minstrel songs). Those references were for older Black women, "aunt" being a substitute for "Mrs" which conveyed more status and respect and was (therefore) reserved for White women. ("Uncle" -instead of "Mr." - was the equivalent title for older Black men.

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This concludes Part I of this three part series.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a three part pancocojams series on examples of African American songs entitled "Shake That Little Foot Sally" or "Shake That Little Foot, Dinah O".

This post showcases a sound file of Harry Belafonte's 1964 Folk/Pop performance of the song "Shake That Little Foot, Sally". My transcription of the lyrics of this version of that song are included in this post along with explanations about some of those lyrics.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/information-about-several-early-lyric.html for Part I of this series. Part I provides general information about those songs and showcases several early text (lyrics only) examples of "Shake That Little Foot Sally" or "Shake That Little Foot, Dinah O" and a closely related song "Great Big Taters in the Sandy Land" (and other titles).

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/round-robin-kick-that-little-foot-sally.html for Part III of this series. Part III showcases Round Robin's 1964 R&B song "Kick That Little Foot, Sally". The Addendum to Part III provides information about the Rhythm & Blues dance "the Slauson" which is mentioned in that song's lyrics.

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This post is part of an ongoing series on African American and Caribbean songs about "Little Sally Ann and Little Sally Waters/Walker" songs and rhymes. Click that tag below for other posts in that series.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric and cultural purposes.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the composer/s of this version of that song and thanks to Harry Belafonte and all others who performed this version of "Shake That Little Foot, Sally" and all those who were involved in the production of this performance. Thanks also to the publisher of this sound file on YouTube.

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SHOWCASE EXAMPLE: Shake That Little Foot (Live)



Harry Belafonte - Topic Published on Mar 10, 2016

Provided to YouTube by Sony Music Entertainment

Shake That Little Foot (Live) · Harry Belafonte / Harry Belafonte

Belafonte at the Greek Theatre

℗ Originally released 1964. All rights reserved by RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

Released on: 2016-03-11

Conductor, Composer, Lyricist: Howard Roberts
Producer: Bob Bollard
-snip-
Click for information about Harry Belafonte.

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LYRICS - SHAKE THAT LITTLE FOOT, SALLY
(as performed by Harry Belafonte and singers - elafonte at the Greek Theatre, 1964)*

Note: Information about the singing other than the parts is given in italics. Background singers' portion is sometimes given in brackets.

Soloist (Harry Belafonte): Ahhh- ahhh riff

Chorus:
Oh, Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann
Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann

Background singers sing chorus without soloist:
Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann
Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann

Background singers continue to sing the chorus

Soloist: Whoo!

Soloist and background singers:
Oh, Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann
Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann
Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann
Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann

Soloist: See that muskrat

Background singers- [Un hun]
Pluckin his banjo
[Un hun]
Draggin’ his slick tail
[Un hun]
Through the muddy water
[Un hun]
Pluckin his banjo,
Draggin his slick tail
See that muskrat Sally Ann.

Chorus [soloist & background singers]
Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann
Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann
Shake that little foot Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann
Shake that little foot, Sally, Sally
Shake that little foot, Sally Ann

Soloist- Oh well, shake
One background singer croons “oooh” throughout this portion
Soloist & other background singers - Sally, Sally
Soloist- Oh well, shake
Soloist and other background singers -Sally Ann!
Soloist -Come on and shake
Soloist and other background singers -Sally Sally
Soloist- Come on and shake
Soloist and other background singers- Sally Ann!

Soloist- Oh well, sit back a bit
Background singers- Un hun
Soloist – smoke those ham hocks
[Un hun]
Well, collard your greens.
[Un hun]
Put on the cutlery
[Un hun]
Bride to the weddin
[Un hun]
Well, smoke those ham hocks
Collard your greens
Put on the cutlery
Bride to the weddin
With Sally Ann.

Chorus sung by soloist and background singers

Repeat section that begins with soloist – Oh well, shake

Soloist – Ah!
Background singers sing “Un hun” throughout a percussion interlude and soloist says “Whoo!” and some other words I can’t decipher.

Background singers stop singing but percussion instruments are still being played

Soloist rapping: Ah, I’mma ask my mama for fifty cents
I wanna to get my gal from off the fence.
Mama said to try the gal next door.
I wouldn’t have to spend my money no more.

Soloist speaking as an aside to the audience: Did you hear that?
I wonder what mama meant by that?

percussion instruments still playing
Soloist and background singers- Ah ha. Ah -ha
Soloist- Ah ha
Background singers- Ah ha
Soloist – Whooo!
Background singers- Whooo!
Soloist- Whoo Whoo!
Background singers- Whoo Whoo!
Soloist rappin - Well, I’m gonna make a big circle inna the ground
I’m gonna watch my gal turn around and around.
Shake it to the left and shake it to the right.
She shake all day and shake all- Soloist laughs
Un hun
Background singers- Un hun
Soloist- Un hun said higher than before
Background singers- Un hun mimics the way the soloist said “un hun”
Soloist shouts- Talk to me!
Background singers- sing Shake Sally
Soloist -La La
Background singers -Sally
Soloist – La La
Background singers- Come on, Sally
Soloist – La La
Background singers- Shake, Sally
Soloist La La
Background singers- Go head, Sally!
Soloist – riffs on the sound “Ah ah” with background singers joining in at the end
Soloist- Well, row across the ocean
Soloist and background singers- La La La
Soloist -Well, show me your motion
Soloist and background singers -La la la
Soloist – Claw foot, get back
Soloist and background singers- La La La
Soloist – Eat more fat back
Soloist and background singers – La La La
Soloist and background singers -Hold that motion
Give me your hand
Fly to the wedding with Sally Ann.
Chorus- soloist and background singers with hand claps, tempo increases as the chorus is sung three times
Soloist = Whoo!
-snip-
Transcription from this recording by Azizi Powell; Additions and corrections are welcome.

Harry Belafonte's version of "Shake That Little Foot, Sally" includes lyrics that are true to some traditional versions of this song. I'm specifically referring to the lyrics that are given as Example #1 and Example #4 in Part I of this pancocojams series - i.e. those lyrics about the muskrat plucking his banjo and dragging his tail, and the lyrics about taking Sally Ann to a wedding. In addition, those two above mentioned traditional versions of "Shake That Little Foot, Sally" include references to food. However, in Belafonte's version, the lyrics refer to (so-called) African American soul food: "smoked ham hocks", "collard greens" and "fat back" (another reference to ham).

Belafonte's version of "Shake That Little Foot, Sally" also includes adapted lines from the African American and/or Caribbean children's singing games/rhymes "Miss Mary Mack", "Little Sally Anne" (also known as "Little Sally Waters"/"Walker"), and "Brown Girl In The Ring"-
For instance, from "Miss Mary Mack": "Ah, I’mma ask my mama for fifty cents" and adapted lyrics that retains the mention of a fence.

From "Little Sally Anne" - references to forming a big circle; references to "shake it" (although, instead of the traditional "shake it to the east and shake it to the west...", this version says "shake it to the left and the right, all day and all...The expected rhyming word "night" isn't spoken, and the soloist confers a sexual suggestion to that unspoken word in his fake innocence aside to the audience.

From "Brown Girl In The Ring" - the traditional lyrics "Show me your motion" is retained, but the "skip across the ocean" is given as "Well, row across the ocean". Also the "Brown Girl In The Ring" refrain "tra la la la" is given as "La La La".

My guess is that the lyrics "Claw foot, get back" in Belafonte's "Shake That Little Foot, Sally" are two movement commands: "claw foot" referring to a way of holding an extended foot and "get back" meaning "to jump back". "Hold that motion" is a clearer movement command that is the same as "Freeze!"

Belafonte's version of "Shake That Little Foot, Sally" also includes other musical riffs, exclamations, and aside comments to the performance's audience.

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This concludes Part I of this three part series.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part III of a three part pancocojams series on examples of African American songs entitled "Shake That Little Foot Sally" (also known as "Shake That Little Foot, Dinah O").

Part III showcases Round Robin's 1964 R&B song "Kick That Little Foot, Sally".

The Addendum to Part III provides information about the Rhythm & Blues dance "the Slauson" (also known as "the Slauson Shuffle") which is mentioned in that song's lyrics.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/harry-belafonte-shake-that-little-foot.html for Part II showcases Harry Belafonte's 1964 Folk/Pop performance of the song "Shake That Little Foot, Sally". Part Ii showcases a sound file of Harry Belafonte's 1964 Folk/Pop performance of the song "Shake That Little Foot, Sally". My transcription of the lyrics of this version of that song are included in this post along with explanations about some of those lyrics

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This post also is part of an ongoing series on African American and Caribbean songs about "Little Sally Ann and Little Sally Waters/Walker" songs and rhymes. Click that tag below for other posts in that series.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, the composers of the R&B song "Kick That Little Foot, Sally. Thanks also to Round Robin and thanks to the identified background singers Darlene Love and the Blossoms (Fanita James and Gracia Nitzsche). In addition, thanks to the publisher of the YouTube videos and sound files that are showcased or mentioned in this post.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO: Round Robin "Kick That Little Foot Sally"



NRRArchives2 Published on Apr 26, 2013

American Bandstand. May 09, 1964. Capitalizing on the success of the 'portly' singer (Fats Domino, Chubby Checker), Round Robin comes out with a slightly more rhythmic song than his first effort. Interview follows the performance.

Here's a comment from that video's discussion thread:
grammarita1, 2016
"mrob75: I looked up Round Robin in Joel Whitburn's '55-'82 compilation and found only one song that made the top 100 for him, namely this one. At that, it peaked at only #61. A shame! Really great sound, and I bet I saw at least one of his appearances with Dick Clark but didn't hear the song nearly enough to realize how good it is. Recently caught it on a lost oldies radio show and Googled it to find out the title and artist."
-snip-
Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVxDlzTpTM4 for another video of Round Robin performing "Kick That Little Foot, Sally" on a later date in 1964 on American Bandstand. (American Bandstand. October 03, 1964)

Here's a comment about this song from that video's discussion thread:
grammarita1, 2016
"One Saturday morning I caught a lost oldies show on the radio. This song struck my fancy; so I tried to Google it. I probably saw this Dick Clark version live way back when, but, regardless, I love it! It's a shame the song didn't climb any higher than #61. As they used to say, "Good beat, easy to dance to--I'll give it an 85."
-snip-
Another comment from that discussion thread can be found in this post's Addendum.

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LYRICS: KICK THAT LITTLE FOOT, SALLY
(composers P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri)

Kick that little foot Sally, Sally
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Do that Slauson, Sally Ann.

Well I saw Sally at the party
(Kick that little foot, Sally Ann)
A-looking lonely as can be
(Kick that little foot, Sally Ann)
She said, I don't know how to Slauson
(Kick that little foot, Sally Ann)
I said, get up from that chair and follow me.

Kick that little foot Sally, Sally
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Do that Slauson, Sally Ann.

Well Sally got up on the dance floor.
(Kick that little foot Sally Ann)
By the second dance she was a-doing fine.
(Kick that little foot Sally Ann)
And now they call her queen of the Slauson
(Kick that little foot Sally Ann)
You can't get her out of that Slauson line.

Kick that little foot Sally, Sally
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Do that Slauson, Sally Ann.

(Instrumental break)

Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Do that Slauson,Sally Ann.

Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Do that Slauson, Sally Ann.

Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
Kick that little foot Sally, Sally,
Kick that little foot Sally Ann.
[repeat the chorus 2 more times]

Source: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/round+robin/kick+that+little+foot+sally+ann_20845853.html

****
ADDENDUM: INFORMATION ABOUT THE SLAUSON DANCE
The Slauson, also given as "The Slauson Shuffle", was a short lived, Los Angeles, California based R&B dance (from 1962 to to 1964). The Slauson was named after a street in Hollywood, California (Hollywood is part of Los Angeles.) The Slauson dance was the theme of a number of R&B records*, including several records that were performed by Rockin Robin. Rockin Robin performed one of his Slauson themed records at least two times on the nationally televised teen dance television series American Bandstand. However, in spite of these promotions, The Slauson dance never caught on nationally.

The Slauson appears to have been a line dance (i.e. from Round Robin's lyrics given above "You can't get her out of that Slauson line.". Watch the Round Robin video above which documents how he danced The Slauson. In addition, notice the comment given below, that suggests that the roller skaters may have been the source of the Slauson dance. Recall that dancing to R&B songs (and later Hip Hop tracks) on roller skates at roller skating rinks was very popular among African Americans and (I believe Latinos and some other Americans( from the in the late 1960s to at least the early 1990s). Here's one article about the popularity of roller skate dancing at skating rinks: https://medium.com/the-brothers/back-when-roller-rinks-were-the-original-rap-concert-halls-bcae590f2603

For what it's worth, I was a teenager in the 1960s in New Jersey, and I don't have any recollection of either Round Robin or The Slauson dance.

*Thee were a number of "Slauson" dance records. Here are two of those records (besides those released by Round Robin). I think that the instrumental by is the first "Slauson" record.

Slauson Shuffle - Don Julian and The Larks (1962) (HD Quality) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=437DoIbXyMc
-snip-
I believe that this 1962 instrumental record was the first "Slauson" record. Note that the publisher of this sound file mentions that this song was [a] "Popcorn classic!". "The Popcorn" is a popular 1960s dance (and fwiw, is a dance that I remember doing).

**
The Olympics - Do The Slauson Shuffle - Tri Disc - 1963 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tArYllIg5Cc

****
Here are two excerpts of articles that mention The Slauson:
These articles are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only:
Excerpt #1:
From https://funky16corners.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/round-robin-the-vulture/
..."I’ve been seeing his records for years (as Round Robin, Round Robin & the Parleys and Round Robin Monopoly), but only picked one up in the last few months....

It was only a short while after that, as I was reading Domenic Priore’s ‘Riot On the Sunset Strip’ that I read anything at all about the man (though, no matter how I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to discover what his last name was).

Round Robin was a Los Angeles-based singer who got his start in the early 60’s with the regional hit ‘Do the Slauson’, and was for a time (thanks to a lot of exposure on the Lloyd Thaxton TV show*) something of a West Coast, dance-craze Chubby Checker. In fact, so popular was ‘The Slauson’ that he devoted sides of his first three 45s to the ‘Slauson’ (a street in LA) songs, ‘Slauson Shuffle Time’, ‘Slauson Party’ and ‘Do the Slauson’*.

He recorded more than a dozen 45s between 1963 and 1975, running the gamut from R&B/twist party, through soul, garage and funk.

[...]

I haven’t seen anything to indicate what happened to Round Robin, so if any of you out there have the scoop, please drop me a line.
Peace
Larry

*LLoyd Thaxton was a major LA-based TV and radio personality, whose dance party show was syndicated for a time in the 60s. Round Robin apparently released a couple of albums for Thaxton, so the chances are that there are in fact even more ‘Slauson’ tunes. Interestingly enough, Bob & Earl reportedly looked to ‘Slauson Shuffle Time’ for inspiration when they whipped up the mighty ‘Harlem Shuffle’."

****
Excerpt #2
From http://www.laobserved.com/intell/2014/06/when_summer_meant_fun.php When summer meant fun
By Joel Bellman | June 15, 2014
..."Before long, [P.F.] Sloan and his new songwriting partner Steve Barri (born Stephen Lipkin) were writing and cutting several demos a week seeking that elusive payday. … Increasingly proficient and gaining confidence, the budding Sloan-Barri team finally scored with Kick That Little Foot, Sally Ann, a bouncy calypso number by a rotund black singer from South L.A. calling himself Round Robin. It was released [in 1964] on the tiny Domain label, whose offices were across the hall from Screen Gems, and intended to cash in on a short-lived local dance craze called "The Slauson."

Sloan writes that their song -- actually not an original, but a remake/remodel of an old mountain music tune first recorded decades earlier -- had previously been rejected by Harry Belafonte. But in fact, Belafonte had already performed the song "Shake That Little Foot" live at the Greek Theatre earlier that same summer, and he would later release it on a double album (the liner notes call it a traditional folk song, but Belafonte and his arranger took a publishing credit.) Sloan, a fan of Belafonte's, might even have attended. But graced by top notch-production and a swinging gospel arrangement by Jack Nitzsche, and powered by the Wrecking Crew, the Sloan-Barri team had cast their spell and racked up their first hit."
-snip-
Harry Belafonte's "Kick That Little Foot, Sally" song is showcased in Part II of this pancocojams series.

****
Here's a summary from one of Round Robin's "Slauson" records:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfsiWvMpd8c
Round Robin (Blossoms) - DO THE SLAUSON (Gold Star Studio) (1963)
[published by Anthony Reichardt, on Aug 22, 2010
"NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED - (Domain 1019 and 1400) Out of Los Angeles, this disc is the debut release of a series of singles issued on various labels over the course of twelve years by this local Los Angeles vocalist. In 1963, Round Robin (Robin Lloyd) presented the new dance called 'The Slauson' on L.A.'s syndicated teen dance show, 'The Lloyd Thaxton Show'. The tune was recorded in November 1963 at Hollywood's Gold Star Studio with an ensemble of The 'Wrecking Crew' and background vocals by the Blossoms who are credited on the label as The Parlays. Perry Botkin, Jr.'s on-fire arrangement takes off with an explosive opening with drums galore, heavy bass, a growling, nasty sax solo in the middle and then comes to a screeching halt with an echo-laden crash.

The music backing track and background vocals would be recycled and given new life a year later with new lyrics and title. 'The London Jerk' featuring the lead vocals of dancer, DAVID WINTERS was issued as Counsel #401."...
-snip-
Here's a comment from that YouTube sound file's discussion thread:
luis grant, 2012
"the back -up group sounds alot like Darlene Love and the Blossoms"

****
Here are additional YouTube discussion thread comments about The Slauson dance:
From: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=viSgyyrvbnU; video given above)
1. mrob75, 2013
"Love this! What is the name of the dance mentioned here? I'd never heard of it! Seems that this song really didn't catch on fire as Dick mentioned earlier...Maybe it was a regional hit (?) Anyone know?

**
2. Russ Johnson, 2015
"A great song, but the Slauson "kick-the-right-foot-on-four" looked kind of strange. Maybe it needed to be done, as Round Robin said of the dance's origin, on skates."

****
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVxDlzTpTM4
John Hamilton, 2014
"He's saying "Do that Slauson," a dance named after Slauson Avenue in Hollywood."

****
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfFTHgk7goM PHILADELPHIA AMERICAN BANDSTAND DOCUMENTING THE DANCE

This video purports to document some dances that were performed by dancers on the nationally syndicated television show American Bandstand. According to the text that is superimposed on the video screen at 1:23, the dancers are doing "The Slauson". However, read this comment below from that video's discussion thread:
Nick Roby, 2014
"I very much enjoyed this footage that was posted, and found it interesting growing up in Philly and watching everyday since 1955, and even having a "regular" help me get into the show when only 13 in 1962, that I never heard of that "Slauson Shuffle"? The few who were not dancing the jitterbug looked to be doing the "Mashed Potatoes". We never did a dance in 1963 called the "Slauson Shuffle", but there was a song by that title by The Meadowlarks. I loved the guy with the dessert boots STOMPING!"
-snip-
"Philly" is a nickname for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philly is about an hour from my home town of Atlantic City, New Jersey. When I was a young teenager I would dream about being on that show, but as I got older I realized that dream wouldn't come true as only White teenagers were allowed to be on that show. And after the Black dance show Soul Train started airing on television, I no longer cared about and no longer cared for American Bandstand.

The comment about "a song by that title by the Meadowlarks" probably refers to Don Julian and The Larks'"Slauson" record.

****
This concludes Part III of this three part pancocojams series.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post provides information about the Biblical prophet "Elijah" and showcases The Golden Gate Quartet's 1978 song "Elijah" and a contemporary barbershop quartet replication of that song by (JR).

My transcription of that song is given in this post.

The Addendum to this post provides information about the meaning of "holy fire".

****
This post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series on religious songs that mention people from the Bible's Old Testament. Click the "songs and rhymes about Old Testament people" tag to find for more posts in this series.

The content of this post is presented for religious, cultural, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to The Golden Gate Quartet for their composition and 1978 performance of "Elijah". Thanks also to JR (StillJreming) for his contemporary replication of that song. Thanks also all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these examples on YouTube examples.

Special thanks to Gigi Erba from Italy for sending me a request for a transcription of The Golden Gate Quartet's "Elijah" and in doing so introducing me to both of the performances that are showcased in this post. I appreciate you request and your support of this pancocojams blog.

****
INFORMATION ABOUT ELIJAH
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah
"Elijah ...Hebrew... meaning "My God is Yahu/Jah"[1][2]) or Elias (/ᵻˈlaɪ.əs/; Greek: Ηλίας Elías; Syriac: ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ‎ Elyāe; Arabic: إلياس or إليا, Ilyās or Ilyā) was a prophet and a miracle worker who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel[3] during the reign of Ahab (9th century BC), according to the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah defended the worship of Yahweh over that of the Canaanite deity Baal. Yahweh also performed many miracles through Elijah, including resurrection (raising the dead), bringing fire down from the sky, and entering Heaven alive "by a whirlwind".[4] He is also portrayed as leading a school of prophets known as "the sons of the prophets".[5] After his death, Elisha his disciple and most devoted assistant took over his role as leader of this school. The Book of Malachi prophesies Elijah's return "before the coming of the great and terrible day of Yahweh",[6] making him a harbinger of the Messiah and of the eschaton in various faiths that revere the Hebrew Bible. References to Elijah appear in Ecclesiasticus, the New Testament, the Mishnah and Talmud, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and Bahá'í writings.

In Judaism, Elijah's name is invoked at the weekly Havdalah ritual that marks the end of Shabbat, and Elijah is invoked in other Jewish customs, among them the Passover Seder and the brit milah (ritual circumcision). He appears in numerous stories and references in the Haggadah and rabbinic literature, including the Babylonian Talmud.
The Christian New Testament [7] describes how Elijah was thought, by some, to be the Messiah. Jesus makes it clear that John the Baptist is "the Elijah" who was promised to come in Malachi 4:5.[8] Elijah appears with Moses during the Transfiguration of Jesus. Elijah is also a figure in various Christian folk traditions, often identified with earlier pagan thunder or sky gods.

In Islam, Elijah appears in the Quran as a prophet and messenger of God, where his biblical narrative of preaching against the worshipers of Baal is recounted in a concise form.[9] Due to his importance to Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians, Elijah has been venerated as the patron saint of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1752."...

****
SHOWCASE SONG
Example #1: The Golden Gate Quartet - Elijah



koliakaramasov Published on Mar 9, 2016

The Golden Gate Quartet

"All Over This World"
1978
-snip-
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Quartet
"The Golden Gate Quartet (a.k.a. The Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet) is an American vocal group. It was formed in 1931 and, with changes in membership, remains active. It is the most successful of all of the African-American gospel music groups who sang in the jubilee quartet style."...

Read more information about The Golden Gate Quartet on that page.

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Example #2: Elijah - (Barbershop Quartet with Guitar) - By JR



StillJreming, Published on Feb 15, 2013

It's been my desire for a long time to pay a tribute to the Barbershop Gospel Quartets that I grew up listening to and that vastly influenced my music. From the Golden Gate Quartet to the Jubalaires and even lesser known bands like the Dixieraires, they brought the Negro Spirituals out of the confines of the sweat and tears of the cotton fields, to make it a music of harmony and jubilation. I hope you enjoy, this is only a start! :-)

****
LYRICS - GOLDEN GATE QUARTET - ELIJAH*
(as sung by The Golden Gate Quartet)

All:
God said He would
Send down fire
Send it down to Elijah
Said He would set the altar on fire
Yep, didn’t He say
Didn’t He say

God said He would
Send down fire
(Yeah)
Send it down to Elijah
Said He would set the altar on fire
Yep, didn’t He say
Didn’t He say

Other members of the quartet hum “Hmmm” after every line

Soloist :
Well, God know Elijah was a great man of God
They tell me that Elijah went wandering abroad
In a land of no food, no water to drink
But they tell me, Great God, he had the Bible strength
He got food from the raven and the dove
Water from the brooks so I heard
So he went struttin’ on down to Israel land
To tell them how long the family would stand.

All:
God said He would
Send down fire
Send it down to Elijah
Said He would set the altar on fire
Yep, didn’t He say
Didn’t He say

God said He would
Send down fire
(Yeah)
Send it down to Elijah
Said He would set the altar on fire
Yep, didn’t He say
Ah, didn’t He say

Soloist:
(Members of the quartet hum “Dooo” in the background after every line)
Great God!
Then old King Ahab he wanted to know
How could be so sure
Then Elijah said “Stop” Let me show
That a man of God ought to know
Just heard from the Master and got a request
Just build and have a contest
Ah build an altar all made of stone
And the mighty man began to moan.
And they cried “Baal”

All:
Send down the fire
(Oh!)
Send the fire
Oh, send the fire
Send the fire from the sky

(Woah! Call them!)
Send the fire
(Woah! Call them!)
Send the fire
Well, call a little louder.
Oh, won’t you call them.

Some people sleepin.
Won’t you send the fire from the sky.

Soloist:
Members of the quartet hum “oooo” throughout
From morning to evening they did cry
Tryin to bring down fire from the sky
Then Elijah callin from freedom land
to the Rose of Sharon, the God on high
Then lightning came down from the sky
And struck the altar with a burning fire
And the people standing heard him cry

God said He would

All:
God said He would
Send down fire

(Said He would)
Send it down to Elijah

(Said He would)
Set the altar on fire
Didn’t He say
Didn’t He say
-snip-
*Transcription by Azizi Powell from the Golden Gate Quartet recording that is found above. Additions and corrections are welcome.

Pancocojams interjections by one or more members of the Quartet are given in parenthesis and performance instructions are given in italics.

The lyrics for both renditions of this songs are basically the same except for some interjections such as "Whoo".

****
ADDENDUM- THE CHRISTIAN MEANING OF THE TERM "HOLY FIRE"
From https://www.gotquestions.org/Holy-Spirit-fire.html
"Question: "How is the Holy Spirit like a fire?"

Answer: The Bible describes God as “a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29), so it is not surprising that fire often appears as a symbol of God’s presence. Examples include the burning bush (Exodus 3:2), the Shekinah glory (Exodus 14:19; Numbers 9:15-16), and Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 1:4). Fire has many times been an instrument of God’s judgment (Numbers 11:1, 3; 2 Kings 1:10, 12) and a sign of His power (Judges 13:20; 1 Kings 18:38).

For obvious reasons, fire was important for the Old Testament sacrifices. The fire on the altar of burnt offering was a divine gift, having been lit originally by God Himself (Leviticus 9:24). God charged the priests with keeping His fire lit (Leviticus 6:13) and made it clear that fire from any other source was unacceptable (Leviticus 10:1-2).

… At the very beginning of the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is associated with fire. John the Baptist predicts that Jesus will be the One to “baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). When the Holy Spirit began His ministry of indwelling the early church, He chose to appear as “tongues of fire” resting on each of the believers. At that moment, “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2:3-4).”...

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams provides three versions of lyrics for the Calypso song "Murder In De Market" (also known as He Had It Coming To Him" and "Stone Cold Dead In The Market".

Information and comments about this song are included in this post along with four YouTube examples of this song performed by Gracie Barrie (1940s); Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Jordan (1946); Harry Belafonte and The Islanders (1960s), and Lorna Myers; 2010?).

In addition to presenting these lyrics and information, I'm also highlighting the use of the term "stone cold" in these songs.

The content of this post is presented for linguistic, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes. purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Lord Invader for composing and performing this song and thanks to the other Calypsonians for their adaptations of this song. Thanks also to Houdini and other singers for their renditions of these songs. In addition, thanks to members of the Mudcat online folk music discussion forum who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these examples on YouTube.

****
This post serves as a companion to this January 31, 2017pancocojams post: https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/01/what-susan-rice-meant-by-term-stone.html
What Susan Rice Meant by The Term "Stone Crazy" In Her Tweet About Trump's National Security Council & Other Comments About The Vernacular Use Of The Word "Stone"

That post quotes this entry from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stone%E2%80%93cold:
"Definition of stone–cold: absolutely (stone–cold sober)

First Known Use of stone–cold: 1592

Definition of stone–cold for English Language Learners: completely or totally".
-snip-
While this post doesn't focus on the issues of spousal abuse and revenge murder, I recognize the significance of those issues in this song and in life itself.

****
SONG LYRICS
These lyrics are given as Example #1, Example #2, and Example #3.

I believe that the composition that is given as Example #1 is older than the composition that is given as Example #2. However, I'm not sure about this.

Example #1:
LYRICS: MURDER IN DE MARKET
(Lord Invader, 1939?)

Murder in de Market, murder.
Murder in de Market, murder.
Murder in de market, murder.
Betsy Thomas, she kill Payne stone dead.

Murder in de market, murder.
Murder in de market, murder.
Murder in de market, murder.
Betsy Thomas, she kill Payne stone dead.

Payne dead, Payne dead, stone dead.
Payne dead, Payne dead, stone dead.
Payne dead, Payne dead, stone dead.

Betsy Thomas she kill Payne stone dead.
"oh, I ain't kill nobody but me husband.
Oh, I didn't kill nobody but me husband.
Oh, I didn't kill nobody but me husband.

Oh, I ain't kill nobody but me husband,
So I could face de judge independent!

Murder in de market, murder.
Murder in de market, murder.
Murder in de market, murder.
Betsy Thomas she kill Payne stone dead.

De big Grand Session is tomorrow,
De big Grand Session is tomorrow,
De big Grand Session is tomorrow,
Betsy Thomas she kill Payne stone dead.

She ain't kill nobody but she husband,
Oh, she didn't kill nobody but she husband,
Oh, she ain't kill nobody but she husband,
Betsy Thomas, she kill Payne stone dead.

Murder in de market, murder.
Murder in de market, murder.
Murder in de market, murder.
Betsy Thomas kill Payne stone dead.

"Pp. 34-36, musical score, notated for voice, guitar, drums and bass.
Edric Connor, Songs from Trinidad, 1958, Oxford University Press.

A version sung by Young Tiger, 1953, is on youtube.

Discussed in Louise Cramer,"Songs of West Indian Negroes in the Canal Zone."California Folklore Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 3, July, 1946. (JSTOR)
This article (not seen) is the basis for assigning the song to Barbados, and has the story behind the song. (It may have the date of the event).

Rewritten and revised as "Stone Cold Dead in the Market" by Wilmouth Houdini, a calypso singer, in 1939,* an adaptation of "He Had it Coming" (another title), it was a hit for Ella Fitzgerald, Belafonte and others. See thread 34020 for the Belafonte version as posted by Joe Offer.
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=34020

Franklin Bruno, 2011, Popular Music and Society** vol. 34, issue 1, pp. 7-21.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a933307712
-snip-
posted on Mudcat discussion thread http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=138235 by Q (Frank Staplin), 31 May 11 - 05:57 PM along with the following citation of locations: Barbados, Trinidad, Canal Zone of Panama"
-snip-
Pancocojams Editor: *According to the information given in Comment #3 of the Mudcat excerpt below, the information given in this sentence is incorrect. The corrected information is that Lord Invader composed and recorded this song is 1939 and Houdini, another Calypso singer (Calypsonian), recorded an adapted version of this song in 1946.

**This quote is given in this post after the Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Jordan sound file that is embedded below.

****
Example #2
STONE COLD DEAD IN THE MARKET
"(Frederick Hendricks; aka Lord Invader) [Pancocojams Editor's note: This could be Wilmouth Houdini's 1946 adaptation]

"She: He's stone cold dead in de market,
He's stone cold dead in de market,
He's stone cold dead in de market,
I kill nobody but me husband.

He: Last night I went out drinking,
When I came home I gave her a beating;
So she cotch up up de rolling pin,
And went to work on my head 'til she boshed it in.

I lie cold dead in de market,
Stone cold dead in de market,
I lie cold dead in de market,
She kill nobody but her husband

She: I lick him with de pot and de frying pan,
I lick him with de pot and de frying pan,
I lick him with de pot and de frying pan,
And if I kill him, he had it coming.

He's stone cold dead in de market,
He's stone cold dead in de market,
He's stone cold dead in de market,
I kill nobody but me husband.

He: My family is swearing to kill her,
My family is swearing to kill her,
She: His family is swearing to kill me,
And if I kill him, he had it coming.
He's stone cold dead in de market,

He: He lie cold dead in de market,
Stone cold dead in de market,
He lie cold dead in de market,
She kill nobody but her husband

She: There's one thing that I am sure
He ain't going to beat me no more
So I tell you that I doesn't care
If I was to die in de 'lectric chair

He's stone cold dead in de market,
He's stone cold dead in de market,
He's stone cold dead in de market,
I kill nobody but me husband.

He: (spoken): Hey, child, I'm goming back and bosh you on the head one more time
.
She: (spoken): No, no, man, you can't do dat

He's stone cold dead in de market,
He's stone cold dead in de market,
The criminal is stone cold dead in de market,
I kill nobody but me husband.


This source says the song was written by Frederick Hendricks, Northern Music/ASC
AP
Recorded by Harry Belafonte
Transcribed from "Ella Fitzgerald, 75th Birthday Celebration" (Decca CD) (duet w
ith Louis Jordan)

Another source attributes it to Wilmoth Houdini, 1946."

Source: http://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=9478

****
Example #3:
LYRICS- MURDER IN THE MARKET
"As recorded by Young Tiger (George Browne) in 1953

Stone cold dead in de market,
Stone cold dead in de market,
Stone cold dead in de market,
Well, she killed nobody but she husband.

Yes, she hit him in de head wit' de fryin' pan,
She hit him in de head wit' de fryin' pan,
She hit him in de head wit' de fryin' pan,
And if she kill him, he had it comin'.

And so he's stone cold dead in de market,
Stone cold dead in de market,
Stone cold dead in de market,
Well, she killed nobody but she husband.

Last night he went out drinkin',
And den he came in and gave her a beatin' [not sure; recording has a glitch at this point]
So she picked up de rollin' pin,
And worked on his head till she bashed it in.

And now he's stone cold dead in de market,
Stone cold dead in de market,
Stone cold dead in de market,
Well, she killed nobody but she husband.

Now his family is swearin' to kill her,
His family is swearin' to kill her,
His family is swearin' to kill her,
So if she kill him, he had it comin'.

And now he's stone cold dead in de market, mother! [or "murder"?]
Stone cold dead in de market,
Stone cold dead in de market,
Well, she killed nobody but she husband."
-snip-
*These lyrics were transcribed by Jim Dixon from the recording on YouTube and posted on Mudcat 04 Jun 11 - 08:46 AM http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=34020

Unfortunately, Young Tiger's sound file is no longer available on YouTube (as of the date of this pancocojams post, but probably earlier.)

****
SELECTED COMMENTS ABOUT "MUrDER IN DE MARKET" (also known as "STONE COLD DEAD IN THE MARKET"&"HE HAD IT COMING TO HIM"

Pancocojams's Editor: These selected comments are given in chronological order based on their publishing date. They are numbered in this post for referencing purposes only. I encourage you to read the entire discussion thread which also includes biographical information for and comments about Lord Invader.

My explanatory comments are given in parenthesis.

From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=34020
1. [This first comment refers to what this commenter alleges was an actual event that served as the story behind Lord Invader's song].

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Murder in de Market (Caribbean)
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 01 Jun 11 - 02:13 AM

"Q, Betsy Thomas' murder of Thomas Payne occurred in the 1870s."

**
2. [This comment was written in response to Q's question about the citation of the 1870s date.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Murder in de Market (Caribbean)
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 01 Jun 11 - 05:48 PM

"i have the songbook "Folk Songs of Barbados" collected by Trevor Marshall, Peggy McGeary, and Grace Thompson. They include the song and its melody, unfortunately no accompaniment :( and the date of the events, stating that "Betsy Thomas, the common-law mate of one Thomas Payne, allegedly murdered him during a quarrel". There is a mention of the song in Trinidadian songbooks. What I find interesting is how distanced the folk version is from the events, compared with "Stone Cold Dead in The Market", which is from a first-person perspective, and is, in my opinion, one of the best songs about battered woman syndrome ever, done before battered woman syndrome was ever named or recognised. Also in the case of murder ballads based on true stories, how does a person find information on the actual incident? Because some American murder ballads seem to have a large proportion of people on this forum who have information about the real incident."

**
3. [Q provides information about Lord Invader's composition of this song, including the original song title "He Had It Coming" and the composition date of 1939.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Murder in de Market (Caribbean)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 03:29 PM

"(Houidini's) "Stone Cold Dead describes a murder in Port-of-Spain's Grass Market in 1939. He recorded it himself in 1939 (as "He Had it Coming) but it got no popularity until Songstress Fitzgerald unearthed it......"

Time Magazine, Music: King of Calypso, Aug. 26, 1946. Unsigned article about Wilmoth Houdini (Edgar Leon St.-Clair his real name).

The 1939 incident may have been an unintentional copycat murder?"

-snip-
The information given in comment #3 above corrects the information given in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Cold_Dead_in_the_Market_(He_Had_It_Coming) about this song:
""Stone Cold Dead in the Market (He Had It Coming)" is a 1946 song with lyrics and music by Wilmoth Houdini, a Trinidad and Tobago musician who had moved to the United States. It was recorded by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five on Decca and later included in the Ella Fitzgerald album Ella and Her Fellas. The single was the first of five singles that Louis Jordan would take to the number-one spot on the R&B Juke Box chart.[1] The song also reached number seven on the U.S. pop chart.[2] The B-side of the single, "Petootie Pie," was also an R&B chart hit peaking at number three. This song received later notoriety in the 2010s with the 2011 release of L.A. Noire in which this song is featured."

****
SHOWCASE EXAMPLES
Example #1 [Video]: STONE COLD DEAD IN THE MARKET (1940s)



silezukuk, Uploaded on Sep 24, 2009

Gracie Barrie [singer]

****
Example #2: [Sound File] : Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan - Stone Cold Dead In The Market (He Had It Coming)



FunkyChez's channel, Uploaded on Jan 14, 2009
-snip-
Here's a review of this song as mentioned earlier in this post:
From http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03007766.2011.539807
Altmetric Articles
“Stone Cold Dead in the Market”: Domestic Violence and Americanized Calypso"
Franklin Bruno
Pages 7-21 | Published online: 10 Feb 2011

"Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan's recording of “Stone Cold Dead in the Market” was a major R&B and pop hit in 1946. In narrating a woman's murder of her abusive husband from a sympathetic first-person point of view, the recording's depiction of domestic violence raises the question of how it achieved mass popularity in a cultural milieu that discouraged frank discussion of this topic. This paper attempts to account for this popularity by tracing the musical and lyrical changes between the hit recording and its sources, the Caribbean folk ballad “Payne Dead”/“Murder in the Market” and calypso performer Wilmouth Houdini's 1939 adaptation “He Had It Coming,” and by arguing that Fitzgerald and Jordan's adoption of an exoticized West African accent, as well as their public personae, effectively produced a comic and ethnic “mask” from behind which the song's subject matter could be presented with relative frankness."

****
Example #3 [Sound File] MURDER IN DE MARKET (Barbados) - Lorna Myers



angarseno, Uploaded on Aug 10, 2010

A Juilliard School graduate, Lorna Myers' opera and concert career spanned Europe, the USA, Mexico and the Caribbean...

****
Example #4 [Sound File]: Lie Stone Dead In The Market by Harry Belafonte & Islanders on early 1960's Mono Celebrity LP.



lrh1966, Uploaded on Jan 9, 2012

Celebrity record album# UT 154. We usually think of the 1956 classic, "The Banana Boat Song", and its signature lyric "Day-O" when we hear the name "Harry Belafonte", but this "King of Calypso" had many other songs and albums as well, including this lp album titled: "An Evening Of Folk Songs & Calypso - With The Islanders". He broke away from "RCA Victor" for a bit to do this lp with the obscure label, "Celebrity". Not sure of exact recording date, but estimate it in the 1960 to 1963 frame of time.

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Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases the Reggae song "Jerusalem" by Alpha Blondy.

Information about Alpha Blondy is also included in this post along with video, song lyrics, and English translations of the non-English words in his 1986 song "Jerusalem".

The content of this post is presented for religious, cultural, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Alpha Blondy for his musical legacy. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these examples on YouTube examples.

****
INFORMATION ABOUT ALPHA BLONDY
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Blondy
Alpha Blondy (born Seydou Koné; 1 January 1953 in Dimbokro,[1] Ivory Coast) is a reggae singer and international recording artist. Many of his songs are politically and socially motivated, and are mainly sung in his native language of Dioula, French and in English, though he occasionally uses other languages, for example, Arabic or Hebrew.

Childhood
First son of a family of eight children, Seydou Koné was raised by his grandmother, growing up in what he described as "among elders", which later was to have a big impact on his career. In 1962, Alpha Blondy went to join his father in Odienné, where he spent ten years, attended Sainte Elisabeth High School, and was involved in the Ivory Coast students movement. He formed a band in high school, but this hobby affected his schooling and he was expelled due to poor attendance. His parents sent him to study English in Monrovia, the capital city of neighboring country Liberia in 1973. He spent thirteen months there and moved to the United States to improve his English.[2]

College in the USA
In 1974, Seydou moved to New York where he majored in English at Hunter College, and later in the Columbia University American Language Program because he wanted to be a teacher. In New York he met Rastafarians for the first time, and was also able to see concerts by Jamaican artists such as Burning Spear. Seydou was involved in multiple altercations in New York and returned to the Ivory Coast, where he got into even more trouble until he met up with one of his childhood friends, Fulgence Kassi, who had become a noted television producer. This was the beginning of his real career as a musician, and he began to use the name "Alpha Blondy".[3]

Musical career
After various TV shows for Kassi, Blondy recorded his first solo album in 1982, entitled Jah Glory. This album was to have enormous success and would become later a symbol of resistance because of the song "Brigadier Sabari," which documents his experience of being arrested in Abidjan in the 1980s and his subsequent mistreatment by the police.[4] Alpha Blondy became a big star in Abidjan with his African twist of Reggae music, becoming in the eyes of his fans "the Bob Marley of Africa".[5] Alpha Blondy is spiritual, political and positive just like Marley himself, and recorded a cover of Bob Marley's song "War". In order to reach more people with his message, he chose to sing in many languages: English; French; Baoulé, and his native language – Dioula.[5] Later, he also brought new instrumentation to his brand of reggae such as the violin and cello."...

****
SHOWCASE VIDEO AND SONG LYRICS: ALPHA BLONDY - JERUSALEM live



Marvin Mulenga,Published on Jul 18, 2012

JERUSALEM LYRICS
Barouh atat adonai (barouh atat adonai)
Barouh aba yeroushalaim (barouh aba yeroushalaim)

From the bible to the coran
Revelation in jerusalem
Shalom salamalekoum
You can see christians, jews, and muslins
Living together and praying amen
Let's gives thanks and praises

Barouh atat adonai
Barouh aba yeroushalaim
Barouh atat adonai
Barouh aba yeroushalaim
Jerusalem here i am
Jerusalem je t'aime
Jerusalem here i am
Jerusalem je t'aime

Israela yakirati
Israela yakirati
Ani ohev otarh
Israela yakirati

Israela yakirati
Israela yakirati
Israela yakirati
Ani ohev otarh
Israela yakirati

From the bible to the coran
Revelation time
Shalom salamalekoum
You can see christians, jews, and muslins
Living together and praying amen
Let's gives thanks and praises

Israela yakirati
Israela yakirati
Ani ohev otarh
Israela yakirati

Israela yakirati
Israela yakirati
Israela yakirati
Ani ohev otarh
Israela yakirati

Jerusalem here i am
Jerusalem je t'aime
Jerusalem here i am
Jerusalem je t'aime

****
ALPHA BLONDY -JERUSALEM (in English only, except for the place name "Jerusalem" and the Hebrew word "amen"; The words in brackets are unspoken, but what I believe completes those particular lyrics)

Blessed are You, Lord.
Blessed is the one who comes [to] Jerusalem.
Blessing are You, Lord.
Blessed is the one who comes [to] Jerusalem.

From the Bible to the Koran, [it is said that]
Revelation [occurs] in Jerusalem
Peace, Peace be unto you.
You can see Christians, Jews, and Muslims [in Jerusalem]
Living together and praying amen.
Let's gives thanks and praises.

Blessed are You, Lord.
Blessed is the one who comes [to] Jerusalem.
Blessing are You Lord.
Blessed is the one who comes [to] Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, here I am.
Jerusalem, I love you.
Jerusalem, here I am.
Jerusalem, I love you.

Dear Israel,
Dear Israel,
Dear Israel,
I love you
Dear Israel.

Dear Israel,
Dear Israel,
Dear Israel,
I love you
Dear Israel.

From the Bible to the Koran [it is said that it is]
Revelation time.
Peace, Peace be unto you.
You can see Christians, Jews, and Muslims
Living together and praying "Amen".
Let's gives thanks and praises.

Dear Israel,
Dear Israel,
Dear Israel,
I love you,
Dear Israel.

Dear Israel,
Dear Israel,
Dear Israel,
I love you,
Dear Israel.

Jerusalem, here I am.
Jerusalem, I love you.
Jerusalem, here I am.
Jerusalem, I love you.

-snip-
I think that the line "Blessed is the one who comes [to] Jerusalem" means "Anyone who comes to Jerusalem is blessed." (i.e. any visitor, and person who moves to Jerusalem). But, at the same time, "the one who comes to Jerusalem" may also be a referent for Jesus.

These translations to English are from the source material given in the next section. Additions, corrections, and comments are welcome.

****
ENGLISH MEANINGS FOR NON- ENGLISH WORDS IN ALPHA BLONDY'S SONG "JERUSALEM"
From http://sci.lang.narkive.com/myPdGOOJ/song-lyrics-in-hebrew
[discussion] song lyrics in Hebrew, posted by Raymond Roy, 2004
"Hello all semiticists,

The Ivorian reggae singer Alpha Blondy sings a song called 'Jerusalem',
with lyrics in French, Arabic and Hebrew.

Could someone translate the Hebrew parts for me? ...

Response posted by Peter Daniels, 2004
..."Baruch ata Adonai (blessed are you, Lord)

...
BAROUH ABA YÉROUSHALAIM.
(maybe) Baruch ha-ba' Yerushalaim (blessed is the one who comes,
Jerusalem)

...
SHALOM SALAMALEKOUM.
Heb [Hebrew] (peace) Ar [Arabic] (peace be unto you)"...

****
"Barouh atat adonai" (Barukh ata Adonai)
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_prayers_and_blessings
".... Most [Hebrew] prayers and blessings can be found in the Siddur, or prayer book. This article addresses Jewish liturgical blessings, which generally begin with the formula: ברוך אתה ה'אלהינו, מלך העולם...
Transliteration: Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha`olam...
Translation: "Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the universe..."

****
"Israela yakirati"
From https://mymemory.translated.net/en/Hebrew/English/israela-yakirati
"yakirati = Querida"
-snip-
Google translate Spanish to English = "Dear"]

ani ohev otach Israel yakirati = Te Amo Querida Israel
-snip-
Google translate Spanish to English = "I love you dear Israel"

****
"Ani ohev otarh"
from http://www.wikihow.com/Say-Love-in-Hebrew
Learn the words for love in Hebrew:
"The noun "love" in Hebrew is ahavah, pronounced ah-hah-vah.
The verb "to love" is something different. It changes depending on your gender, and if you are saying "I love you" it changes depending on the gender of the person you are speaking to.
For a female to say "I love" it would be Ani Ohev et (ah-nee oh-hev-et)
For a male to say "I love" it would be Ani Ohev (ah-nee oh-hev)"

****
"Jerusalem je t'aime" - [French] Jerusalem I love you

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post shoewcases Big Daddy Kane's 1988 Hip Hop track "Ain't No Half Steppin'".

This post also provides definitions of the term "half steppin" and certain other terms & references that that are used in that track. Additions and corrections are welcome.

The content of this post is presented for cultural, linguistic, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks Big Daddy Kane for his musical legacy. Thanks also to to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.

****
INFORMATION ABOUT BIG DADDY KANE'S "AIN'T NO HALF STEPPIN"
From https://genius.com/Big-daddy-kane-aint-no-half-steppin-lyrics
Created by box, 2010
..."The prestigious Rolling Stone Magazine voted this as the 25th best hip hop song of all time.
Written By Marley Marl & Big Daddy Kane.

Scratches- DJ Mister Cee

Mixed By Marley Marl

Release Date -June 28, 1988

Samples
Get Into It by Big Daddy Kane
The Big Beat by Billy Squier
UFO by ESG (NY)
Ease On Down The Road by Charlie Smalls (Ft. Diana Ross & Michael Jackson)
Blind Alley by The Emotions"

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SHOWCASE VIDEO Big Daddy Kane - Aint No Half Steppin



ass3678, Uploaded on Jul 26, 2009

From the "Long Live The Kane" album.

****
LYRICS

Pancocojams Editor:
I've numbered these lines as a means of referring to them in the Definition Of Certain Terms section below.

AIN'T NO HALF STEPPIN'
(written by Marley Marl & Big Daddy Kane)

[Intro]
1) Aw Yea, I'm with this
2) I'm just gonna sit here laid back to this nice mellow beat, you know
3) And drop some smooth lyrics
4) Cause it's '88
5) Time to set it straight, know what I'm saying?
6) And ain't no half stepping
7) Word, I'm ready:

[Verse 1]
8) Rappers stepping to me, they want to get some
9) But I'm the Kane, so yo, you know the outcome
10) Another victory
11) They can't get with me
12) So pick a BC date cause you're history
14) I'm the authentic poet to get lyrical
15) For you to beat me, it's gonna take a miracle
16) And, stepping to me, yo that's the wrong move
17) So what you on, Hobbs, dope or dog food?
18) Competition I just devour
19) Like a pit bull against a Chihuahua
20) Cause when it comes to being dope, hot damn
21) I got it good, now let me tell you who I am
22) The B-I-G D-A-double D-Y K-A-N-E
23) Dramatic, Asiatic, not like many
34) I'm different, so don't compare me to another
25) Cause they can't hang, word to the mother
26) At least not with the principal in this pedigree
27) So when I roll on you rappers, you better be
28) Ready to die because you're petty
29) You're just a butter knife, I'm a machete
30) That's made by Ginsu, wait until when you
31) Try to front, so I can chop into
32) Your body, just because you try to be basing
34) Friday the 13th, I'mma play Jason
35) No type of joke, gag, game, puzzle or riddle
36) The name is Big Daddy, yes Big not little
37) So define it
38) Here's your walking papers, sign it
39) And take a walk
40) As the Kane start to talk, cause

[Hook]
41) Ain't no half-steppin'
42) I'm the Big Daddy Kane

[Verse 2]
43) My rhymes are so dope and
44) The rappers be hoping
45) To sound like me, so soon I'll have to open
46) A school of emceeing, for those who want to be in
47) My field in court
48) Then again on second thought
49) To have emcees coming out sounding so similar
50) It's quite confusing for you to remember
51) The originator, and boy do I hate a
52) Perpetrator, but I'm much greater
53) The best oh yes I guess suggest the rest should fess
54) Don't mess or test your highness
55) Unless you just address with best finesse
56) And bless the paragraph I manifest
57) Rap prime minister, some say sinister
58) Non-stopping the groove, until when it's the
59) Climax, and I max, relax and chill
60) Have a break from a take of me acting ill
61) Brain cells are lit, ideas start to hit
62) Next the formation of words that fit
63) At the table I sit, making it legit
64) And when my pen hits the paper, ahh sh&t!*
65) I stop and stand strong over emcees
66) And devour with the power of Hercules
67) Or Samson, but I go further the length
68) Cause you could scalp my Cameo and I'll still have strength
69) And no, that's not a myth, and if you try to riff
70) Or get with, the man with the given gift of gab
71) Your vocab, I'll only ignore
72) Be sleeping on your rhymes till I start to snore
75) You can't awake me, or even make me
76) Fear you, son, cause you can't do me none
77) So, think about it if you're trying to go
78) When you want to step to me, I think you should know there

[Hook]

[Verse 3]
77) I appear right here and scare and dare
78) A mere musketeer that would dare to compare
79) Put him in the rear, back there where he can't see clear
80) Get a beer, idea or near stare, yeah
81) So on to be want to be competition
82) Trying to step to me--must be on a mission
83) Up on the stage is where I'mma get you at
84) You think I'm losing?
85) Psst, picture that

[Hook]

[Verse 4]
86) The name is Big Daddy, you know, as in your father
87) So when you hear a def rhyme, believe that I'm the author
88) I grab the mic and make emcees evaporate
89) The party people say 'Damn, that rapper's great'
90) The creator conductor of poetry
91) Et cetera, et cetera, it ain't easy being me
92) I speak clearly so you can understand
93) Put words together like Letter Man
94) Now that's dictation, proceeding to my innovation
95) Not like the other MC's that are an imitation
96) Or an animation, a cartoon to me
97) But when I'm finished, I'm sure that you are soon to see
98) Reality, my secret technique
99) Because I always speak with mentality
100) I put my title in your face, dare you to base
101) And if you try and come get it, yo I'mma show you who's with it
102) So if you know like I know, instead of messing around
103) Play like Roy Rogers and slooow doown
104) Just give yourself a break, or someone else will take
105) Your title, namely me, cause I'm homicidal
106) That means murder, cause I'm about to hurt a-
107) Nother MC, that try to get with me
108) I'll just break him and bake him and rake him
109) And take him and mold him and make him
110) Hold up the peace sign
111) As Salaam Alaikum!

Source: https://genius.com/Big-daddy-kane-aint-no-half-steppin-lyrics
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in these lyrics.

****
DEFINITIONS FOR CERTAIN VERNACULAR AND OTHER TERMS IN BIG DADDY KANE'S "AIN'T NO HALF STEPPIN'"
These numbers correspond to the order that the word, phrase, or saying (with that meaning) appear in this Hip Hop track.

1. "I'm with this" - I got this (I'm very confident about what I'm saying and/or doing.)
3. "drop lyrics" - rap; ("Spit bars" is a later [?] equivalent term for "drop lyrics".)
6. "ain't no half steppin" - in the context of this song, Big Daddy Kane is saying that he isn't going to to "half step" when it comes to being a MC (rapper) i.e. He's not going to be a "sucker MC"*.

"Half steppin' = to fail to do something the right way, fully and completely; to fail to give something your all (all your commitment and energy).

"Half steppin[g] refers to the way you do something, and not the way that you step (move).

Two contemporary African American Vernacular English (AAVE) that are the opposite of "half steppin(g) are to do something "to the max" and to "go all out". Both of these idioms mean to do something thoroughly and to the best of your ability.

Another contemporary AAVE antonym (opposite) for "half stepping" is to be "on point" (to do something exactly as it is meant to be done).
-snip-
Here are some urban dictionary.com definitions for "half step", "half steppin(g)", as well as an urban dictionary. com definition for "half-assed"- the latter being a term that is often given as an equivalent for "half-steppin:

From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=half%20step
"half step
1. to start something with no intention of finishing.

2. to talk like you are going to get violent with someone and not follow through.

see that guy over there, he doesn't half step...he'll kick your ass"
by f&&koffanddie* March 27, 2005
-snip-
This “name” is fully spelled out in this entry.
-snip-
I believe that the first definition given in this entry is a closer fit for the use of "half steppin" in Big Daddy Kane's track.

**
From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=half%20steppin
half-steppin'
(v) doing somthing half assed
yesterday i was so hung over i was half-steppin'.
by taylor March 15, 2005

**
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=half%20assed
"half-assed
Doing an activity only partly, or without one's whole self involved; doing something without caring, or without putting anything into it.

I do my homework half-assed because I don't like the course.
by KaBookie August 28, 2003
-snip-
* Here's some information about the meaning of the term "sucker MC"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucker_M.C.%27s
"Sucker M.C.'s" (also known as "Krush-Groove 1" or "Sucker M.C.'s (Krush-Groove 1)" and sometimes spelled as "Sucker MCs", "Sucker MC's" or "Sucker M.C.s") is a song by American hip hop group Run–D.M.C. It was first released in 1983 on a cassette as B-side to "It's like That". The two-sided release marked the start of Run-D.M.C.'s career as their first single.

An MC or M.C. is an abbreviation for Master of Ceremonies, a reference to rappers who controlled the microphones. Sucker is a derogatory street term for someone who believes he has skills, but who does not. It is derived from the common slang term sucker, relating to one who is gullible."...

****
7. "Word" - an affirmative phrase that was widely used among certain African Americans, and later, by non-African Americans in the 1980s and 1990s. "Word" meant "Yeah. I agree [with what you just said]. Two other forms of this affirmative saying that had the same meaning were "Word up" and "Word to the mother".
-snip-
Read the information below for #25 "Word to the mother".

8. "Rappers steppin to me" = Rappers (MCs) coming up to me (in a confrontational manner)
9. "yo" = This usage may be the equivalent of the interjection "Hey".
11. " They can't get with me" = They can bother me.
12. "a BC date" = BC= before Christ, referring to a date from long long ago
17. "Hobbs" - I think this is a generic referent for "man", "dude"; It's not the same character as Hobbs in the contemporary movie series The Fast And The Furious which began in 2001.
17. "dope" = in this line means "illegal drugs"
20. "dope" = in this line means "very good"
23. "Asiatic" = Moorish Science Temple of America referent for Black Americans
From http://msta1913.org/MoorishHistory.html
"Prophet Noble Drew Ali taught the people termed ''Negroes'' in the United States are ''Asiatic'' and specifically that they are Moorish whose forefathers inhabited Northwest and Southwest Africa before they were enslaved in North America."

25. "cause they can't hang" = They can't keep up with me (in terms of actions and/or accomplishments)
25. "word to the mother" - an affirmative phrase used in the 1980s, 1990s that was an extension of the affirmative phrase "Word". "Word up" was another form of this affirmative saying.

Although "mother" in this saying may have been "mother Africa", I don't think that most people who used that saying got that "deep" into its meaning. Instead, I believe that "Word To The Mother" was used the same way and had the same meaning as the contemporary phrases "I know I'm right" and/or "You got that right".

However, here's an online comment about the phrase "word to the mother" and the corrupted [perhaps folk etymology] form of that phrase "word to your mother"]

From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=word+to+your+mother
"Word to your mother"
"An anachronistic corruption of the phrase "word to the mother", which was a popular reference to Africa or "The Motherland" during the late 1980s Afrocentric movement. While the replacement of "the" with "your" effectively obliterated the term's Afrocentric roots, it continued to be used in the same manner, that is, to express agreement. Alternatively, the "your" could take on sinister connotations, implying that speaker was sexually intimate with the listener's mother, as in "say hi to your mom for me", or, in keeping with the whack terminology, "props to your mom, she's da bomb". Finally, the phrase might mean nothing at all, and be used to ineptly feign street cred, in the style of Vanilla Ice.
Jeff - "Given the uncertainty of today's market, I'm strongly considering increasing my portfolio's share of treasury bills."

Greg - "Word to your mother."
#word#word to your moms#mutha#mother#word up
by bluedevil July 20, 2006
-snip-

27. "when I roll on you rappers" = when I confront you; when I challenge you
31. "front" = pretend to be something you're not [in the context of this track, pretend to be a real MC]
32/33. "basing" = [in the context of this track] trying to act stupid like [?]
-snip-
Here's an urban dictionary.com entry that might fit this usage:

From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=basin
Basin
A crackhead, also someone who does stupid things
1: hey have you seen that aaron kid? hes pretty basin
2: what'd he do?
3: he ran naked down the street!
#basin#crackhead#cokehead#coke#crack
by Anon1865 October 31, 2011
-snip-

33. "Friday the 13th/Jason; a very popular American horror movie/movie series that began in 1980; "Jason" is the main character who stalks and kills other people in those movies.
38. "walking papers" = papers notifying people that they have been fired from their employment; by extension, a saying that means that you are being giving notice that a relationship is ending (you are being "let go")
39. "take a walk" = [a command to] leave
43. "so dope" = so very good
46./.49 "emceeing"; "emcee" = "MC"; rapping; rapping
47. "my field in court" = in my league; as good as me ["court" here refers to a "basketball court"]
52. "perpetrator"= [in the context of this track], someone who pretends to be an MC, someone who pretends to be "down with" [a part of] Hip Hop culture
53. "fess"= confess
60. "ill" = great, excellent (the same highly complementary vernacular meaning as "sick")
68. "you can scalp my Cameo" = in the context of this track, "Cameo" means "hair".
-snip-
Read this excerpt from a comment exchange from that embedded video's discussion thread which explains that use of "Cameo" to mean "a high top fade", a particular type of hair style in the 1980s [and 1990s?] which was mostly worn by [Black American] males

2002Socal, 2016
"that high top fade tho... east coast katz was rockin them joints back in the day."

**
Reply
TheEdub1, 2016
"Hell yeah we was rockin the high top fades all day. But really it comes from the dude from the group Cameo."

**
TheEdub1, 2016
"+MISSDD Kane wasn't first it was Larry Blackmon of Cameo. The high top fade used to be called Cameo cut because of him. Kane even says in this song "You can cut my Cameo and I'll still have strength"."
-snip-

87. "def" rhyme = in the context of this track, a very good rhyme
93. "Letter Man" = my guess is that "Letter Man" refers to "The Adventures of Letterman was an animated skit that was a regular feature on the 1971–1977 PBS television series The Electric Company.
Created by Mike Thaler, this super hero spoof debuted during The Electric Company's second season, and quickly became one of the show's most popular segments. There were 60 Letterman segments produced from 1972 to 1976."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Letterman

95. "dare you to base"= act stupid [?] [Read #33 above]
103. "Play like Roy Rogers" and slooow doown" = "Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye, November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998) was an American singer and actor who was one of the most popular Western stars of his era. Known as the "King of the Cowboys", he appeared in over 100 films and numerous radio and television episodes of The Roy Rogers Show". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Rogers

-snip-
I vaguely recall watching the "Roy Rogers" show on television, but don't remember if he was known for saying "Go slow".

110) Hold up the peace sign- from https://emojipedia.org/victory-hand/✌️ Victory Hand
"Most commonly known as a ✌️ Peace Sign, but traditionally called as a Victory Hand. Two fingers held up on one hand making a V sign."

111) "As Salaam Alaikum!" - Arabic greeting and farewell saying [English translation: "Peace be unto you".

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-egyptian-word-hotep-its-various.html for a pancocojams post about how this Arabic greeting/farewell was used by Muslim and non-Muslim African Americans in the 1980s and 1990s and was later changed to "Peace" and "Peace out".

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Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams provides information about and a video of The Baha Men's Soca hit Soca song "Who Let The Dogs Out". A hyperlink to the lyrics for this song is also included in this post.

The content of this post is presented for cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes. purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to The Baha Men for their musical legacy. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these examples on YouTube.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE SONG "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT"
Excerpt #1:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Let_the_Dogs_Out%3F
""Who Let the Dogs Out?" is a song performed by Bahamian group of the Baha Men, released as a single on July 26, 2000. Originally written by Anslem Douglas (titled "Doggie") for the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival season of 1998,[1] it was covered by producer Jonathan King under the name Fat Jakk and his Pack of Pets. He brought the song to the attention of his friend Steve Greenberg, who then had the Baha Men cover the song. The song became the band's first hit in the United Kingdom and the United States, and it gained popularity after appearing in Rugrats in Paris: The Movie and its soundtrack album.

The song peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, as well as topping the charts in Australia and New Zealand, and peaked within the top forty of the charts in the United States. It was Britain's fourth biggest-selling single of 2000, and went on to become one of the highest-selling singles of the decade not to reach number-one. The track went on to win the Grammy for Best Dance Recording on the 2001 Grammy Awards. It was the subject of a major lawsuit over copyright ownership that was settled.[1]"

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Excerpt #2
From http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1099
"Who Let The Dogs Out"
...["Who Let The Dogs Out"] was written by Anslem Douglas, a musician from Trinidad who wrote it two years before The Baha Men recorded it - his original version is called "Doggie." Various versions were hits in the Caribbean, but The Baha Men toned down the calypso rhythm to make it more appealing to American listeners.

We have yet to meet someone who can remember any words to this song other than the chorus, which is: "Who let the dogs out? Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof." The song does have verses and even a hint of meaning - the lyrics are about disrespectful men who hit on women at a party....

Considering what a sensation this song was in America, it had a surprisingly low chart position, peaking at just #40....

The title became a popular catch phrase in America when it was used in the 2000 World Series between the Mets and Yankees. At one point, an exasperated reporter who was sick of hearing the same questions over and over asked Yankees manager Joe Torre if he knew who let the dogs out.
This caused a spat with the Seattle Mariners baseball team, which was the first pro franchise to put the song in rotation. Catcher Joe Oliver was using it as his theme music, but shortstop Alex Rodriguez wanted it for himself. Rodriguez got his way because he was the star. The next year, Rodriquez signed a record $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers....

This is very popular with kids. It won Favorite Song at the 2001 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, and the following year Baha Men won for Favorite Band.
Shortly before Baha Men recorded this song, their lead singer, Nehemiah Hield, left the group. Steve Greenberg and his team went to the Bahamas to hold tryouts, and found three young singers to add to the band. These guys provided a more video-friendly look for the group, and their youthful energy came in handy when they had to travel the world performing this song over and over.

This won the 2000 Grammy for Best Dance Recording.

This was used in the 2000 movie Rugrats In Paris - the deal was made before the song became a hit. Other films that have used the song include:

Rat Race (2001)
Bubble Boy (2001)
Men in Black II (2002)
The Hangover (2009)

[...]

Baha Men are one-hit wonders in America, but wildly popular in their home country of the Bahamas, where their upbeat tunes exhibit the friendly, relaxed nature of the islands. "Who Let The Dogs Out" has a Caribbean sound, but many of their other songs are distinctly Bahamian, with junkanoo rhythms formed by goat-skinned drums, whistles and horns. The group prides themselves on live performance, but had a hard time showing their skills in the "Dog" days."...

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Excerpt #3
From http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1099
"Your grandma. Your old Sunday school teacher. The annoying lady at work. Everyone knows “Who Let the Dogs Out.” The Baha Men’s roots date back to the late 1970s when they were originally known as High Voltage. Despite their name and roots, the group was actually formed in England. They finally hit it big in 2000 with their cover of this song written in by Anslem Douglas. Not only was it the best-selling soca song of all time and one of the biggest songs of any variety in 2000, but it’s retained its place in pop culture ( by turning up in countless movies and TV shows since that time."

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Excerpt #4
From http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/07/Remembering-the-Time-Mitt-Romney-Speak-Sung-Who-Let-the-Dogs-Out REMEMBERING THE TIME MITT ROMNEY SPEAK-SUNG “WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?” BY JULI WEINER
JULY 11, 2012
..."A few years ago, when [Republican Mitt Romney* uncomfortably interacted with another group of black voters, he asked, inexplicably, “Who let the dogs out?” and then barked, like in the song. It’s impossible to give more context because there just isn’t any.
-snip-
Willard "Mitt" Romney was the nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election.
Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDwwAaVmnf4 for a January 2008 video of Mitt Romney saying "Who let the dogs out". A 2012 article about then Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney indicates that "[he] once tried to appeal to a group of black kids at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade by singing the refrain of “Who Let the Dogs Out.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/11/african-americans-nowhere-to-be-found-in-romney-s-orbit"African Americans Nowhere To Be Found In Romney’s Orbit" by Ben Jacobs and Harry Siegel, 04.11.12

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SHOWCASE VIDEO- Baha Men - Who Let The Dogs Out (Original version)



Karan Thakur Uploaded on Jul 23, 2010

all time fav claassic song!
-snip-
The chorus of this song is
"Who let the dogs out {woof, woof, woof, woof}
Who let the dogs out {woof, woof, woof, woof}
Who let the dogs out {woof, woof, woof, woof}
Who let the dogs out {woof, woof, woof, woof}"
-snip-
Click http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bahamen/wholetthedogsout.html for the complete lyrics for this song.

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Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams provides excerpts from several online discussion threads about the birthday custom in New Orleans and some other American communities of wearing dollars pinned to the top of a female's shirt or dress or a male's shirt.

This post also showcases two videos that show the custom of wearing birthday dollars.

The Addendum to this post showcases a video of the custom in Hawaii of wearing a dollar leis (necklace) for graduation. I believe that that Hawaiian custom has a different source than (what appears to be) the primarily Southern region of the United States custom of wearing (pinning) birthday dollars.

The content of this post is presented for cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to to all those who are quoted in this post, thanks to all those who are featured in these videos, and thanks to the publishers of these YouTube videos.
-snip-
This post is a companion to the 2011 pancocojams post https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2011/09/pinning-birthday-dollars.html. I wrote in that post that the American custom of wearing birthday dollars appears to be largely practiced by African Americans, particularly in New Orleans and some other parts of the South. I also theorized that this custom is an adaptation of the Nigerian (and some other African nations') custom of "spraying" paper money on a person to express appreciation and congratulations. In those countries spraying money is not only done at weddings, birthdays, but is also done to express appreciation for dancers, singers, or other people in a program. That 2011 pancocojams post showcases several African videos of people spraying money.

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COMMENTS ABOUT WEARING BIRTHDAY DOLLARS IN THE UNITED STATES
These comments are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.
Excerpt #1
From https://www.facebook.com/OonkasBoonkas/posts/10152321751568172
Oonkas Boonkas, June 26, 2014
"The Cajun Tradition of pinning money onto the birthday boy or girl is the most prevalent among African Americans with it being at it's highest concentration in New Orleans.
This is an old New Orleans tradition. This is not a “new” ritual at least not to those of us from New Orleans. The first time it happened to me a French Quarter chef pinned a $20 note on me said happy Birthday and gave me a kiss I didn't know what to do.

And, although it’s roots are in the black community, everyone in NOLA celebrates with this tradition if they are so inclined. It doesn’t matter what color you are! We are a gumbo of people in NOLA who truly assimilate and appreciate each others culture, i.e. jazz, creole cooking, etc....

You all may be interested in reading this. New Orleans has deep ties to West Africa due to slave trading.

So, this makes sense:
It’s also a West African custom to give money to musicians and dancers while they are performing. Paper money is given in appreciation of the performance. The dollar bills, or other paper money, are either laid at their feet or put in their clothing. This is called “dashing” or “spraying”.

That custom-and the West Africa custom of dashing newlyweds with dollar bills at their wedding reception-are also done in the United States and other places where West Africans live. These gifts are expressions of appreciation and good fortune.

These traditions of “dashing” are probably the source of the custom among some African Americans of giving people (especially children) celebrating their birthday gifts of dollar bills. Those dollar bills are then pinned to the birthday celebrant’s shirt, blouse, or the dress top (near his or her heart).

Lastly, many New Orleanians were scattered to the four corners of this country during Katrina. Some of our New Orleanians evacuated to Houston and have remained there. Hence the picture at the bus stop*.

The custom of spraying money is a traditional Yoruba custom for special occasions such as birthdays, and weddings. Paper money is placed on the honoree’s face and floats down to the ground where it is collected by a designated person. "Spraying” (dashing) is different and was done to shower good fortune on the honoree-that good fortune literally and symbolically is represented by the paper money that is supposed to come down like rain upon that person.

The African American custom of pinning dollar bills to the birthday person (for adults, it seems to me that the honoree is usually female) derives from that Nigerian custom. We pin the dollar bills on to make sure that none goes missing-and a dollar bill is pinned on the top of a person’s dress or shirt to indicate that it’s that person’s birthday and to therefore receive other dollar bills from those seeing that pinned money (whether they are known or unknown to the birthday celebrant)."
-snip-
*This Facebook post includes a photograph of a young Black woman sitting at a bus stop with dollar bills pinned to the left side of her top. A young man is also shown looking at her. The sub-title for this photograph is "poorly dressed". http://cheezburger.com/4674067968?utm_source=embed&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=sharewidget

That photograph and article which ridiculed the woman with dollars pinned to her shirt is what motivated me to publish the 2011 "Pinning Birthday Dollars" pancocojams post whose link is given above. It's interesting that as of at least May 25, 2017, no comments are shown for that particular post, although in 2011 I responded to one comment which I quoted, and I also quoted another comment. And my recollection is that there were other comments besides those three which are preserved in that pancocojams post.

That Facebook post also featured a black and white photograph of an old Black man with birthday dollars pinned to the top right and top left of his suit coat and also pinned throughout many other areas of that suit coat.

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Excerpt #2
Pancocojams Editor: Notice the assumption in several of these comments in this yahoo answers.com excerpt that wearing birthday dollars is a "Black custom".

From https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060824102245AAlarf6 What's up with pinning dollar bills to your shirt on your birthday?

Question:
"What's the story behind pinning dollar bills to your shirt on your birthday? Do people do this any other time, or all the time? How many dollars are you supposed to pin to yourself? Apparently it's a black person thing popular in schools. I've only seen one person do it, but other people have mentioned it and we couldn't figure out why people would do something that silly.

Update: Do you provide your own cash, or do you try to persuade others to donate?"
-no name given, 2007

**
Answers
1. "Best Answer: They do that at my school. The goal is to get the number of $1 bills as your age (ex. $16 if you turn 16) I don't know the story behind it but they hate it when the white kids do it lol
-mjstwin0405 · 2007

**
2. "It's not a black thing. It's a "people that can use a little extra cash thing". They used to do it when I lived in Houston, but I moved to a nicer neighborhood and they don't do that anymore. See? It's also a way of giving people a chance to give you a birthday present if they haven't already. When I was in Houston, your friends would decorate the first bill with markers, and it went on top."
-happyfarah88, 2007

**
3. "You don't pin them on yourself. Your friends give you dollars for your birthday and pin them on you. I've never done it but I've heard about it. Kind of like a dollar dance at a wedding. I'm not black so I don't really know if it's a black thing."
Boober Fraggle, 2007

**
4. It's a form of gift giving. They do this at wedding, birthdays and other celebrations. And it's not just a black thing. My family does it and we're asian. No, you don't provide your own bills, your guests give the money willingly.

Source(s):
my family"
bornagain, 2007

**
5. "It's from a "dollar dance".. which means you pay a dollar and you can dance with the girl.. It was originally a tradition at an Italian wedding.. but it became so popular.. everyone does it and not just for weddings anymore... birthdays, graduations, baby showers etc..
Janine, 2007
-snip-
I believe that pinning birthday dollars comes from a different source than the dollar dance custom that is described above.

**
6. Can a man get pinned with money for his birthday too?
jania, 2015
-snip-
There's no published answer to this question as of the date of this pancocojams post, but from reading other online comments, from the two videos that are shown below, and from my own (admittedly limited) experience, it appears that men in the United States can also have dollar bills pinned to their shirt. However, it also appears that more females (and perhaps more little girls) are the recipients of this custom than males of any age.

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Excerpt #3
From https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g60864-i34-k6516709-o10-Has_anyone_ever_done_the_pin_a_dollar_to_your_shirt_thing-New_Orleans_Louisiana.html [page 2] Re: Has anyone ever done the "pin a dollar to your shirt" thing?

1. KansCityKid, May 20, 2013
Kansas City

"Locals all know what it means. Not just a New Orleans thing, I have seen it done in Arkansas. Not sure how widespread it is, the whole Deep South or just a couple of states. It is a fun custom."

**
2. iquidLuck, May 21, 2013,
El Paso, Texas

"Yes, I have done that. Just a different variation. I live in the southwest, and the custom here is like a birthday corsage that you pin on and then bills get stapled to the corsage. As the night goes on other people add to it. If you do it this way, make sure to carry a mini stapler so people can add to your pile."

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SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Pancocojams Editor:
In contrast to the multiple numbers of videos that I've found of the custom in parts of Africa of spraying people with paper money, I've only found a few videos of wearing dollar bills in the United States and most of those were from New Orleans, Louisiana. I didn't include two of those videos because the videos themselves or their summaries focused on people in clubs (nightclubs) drinking for their birthdays.

Example #1: CELEBRATION MONEY HANGER- GET ON THE SHELF



AyooDenise51, Uploaded on Feb 12, 2012

CELEBRATION MONEY HANGER IS A DECORATIVE WAY TO DISPLAY YOUR MONETARY GIFTS WHILE ANNOUNCING YOUR SPECIAL OCCASSION. THIS REPLACES THOSE DREADFUL SAFETY PINS, STAPLES AND JIM-CLIPS HOLDING MONEY TO YOUR SHIRT. A GREAT NOVELTY ITEM FOR ANYONE, ANY OCCASSION, ANY AGE, ANY GENDER. IT'S EVEN FOR YOU!
-snip-
This video is part of Walmart's 2012 "get on the shelf" contest: https://corporate.walmart.com/_news_/news-archive/2013/07/01/get-on-the-shelf [a] "Viral contest developed by @WalmartLabs returns, offering more opportunities for American businesses and entrepreneurs to sell their products to millions of new customers"
-snip-
The background music is an adaptation of the 2011 Baltimore (Maryland) Club Music song "Get On The Floor If You Got That Booty!"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3lWBY6Oc3Ma

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Example #2: Respect Rap Only



Hal Sandick Uploaded on Apr 25, 2011

Song Available on Itunes - "It's called respect" by the Fearless Lions.

Students use rap and dancing to explain the importance of respecting each other.
-snip-
The following selected comments refer to a male teacher who is wearing a dollar pinned to his shirt (at 2:30 of this video).
Zeraxi Roblox Gaming, 2016
"Lol why did he have a dollar on his shirt"

**
internal 21 ealu, 2016
"Zeraxi Roblox Gaming lol he did have a dollar on his shirt that's funny"

**
Reply
Nikki Bennett, 2017
"Zeraxi Roblox Gaming because it was is birthday duhh"

**
Reply
Clayton Adams, 2017
"Because it was his birthday, many people do that"

**
Reply
Room Fifteen, 2017
"what guy? still lol"

**
Reply
Mattygamer HD, 2017
"I thought it was a money necklace"*

**
Reply
Reborn CutiePies, 2017
"Room Fifteen the teacher at 2:30."
-snip-
*Watch the video given below as Example #3 for information about a "money necklace".

It's likely that the teacher in this video wore a dollar bill pinned to his shirt as a way of informing his students about this custom or acknowledging a custom that his students were already familiar with and definitely not with the expectation that any of his students would give him money. However, it's possible that other adults in that school may have acknowledged his birthday by giving him dollar bills.

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ADDENDUM: How to make a money lei for graduation with school colors



Classy Cheapskate, Published on May 13, 2016

DIY project: How to make a money lei using school colors. This currency project is very easy and makes a super special gift for a high school or college graduate. It's so simple – all you need is paper, ribbon dollar bills, and tape. This method will not harm the money and the receiver will be able to spend the money gift when desired.
-snip-
Here's some information about Hawaiian money leis:
From http://www.proflowers.com/blog/why-we-give-hawaiian-leis-for-graduation
"When a person gives someone a lei, it symbolizes their affection towards the other. Leis are commonly presented when someone is arriving and leaving, so it’s no surprise that leis are given to graduates as they are leaving school and arriving to this new stage of life. Traditionally, the receiver is supposed to bow their head down so the gift-giver can place the lei around their neck. They end this custom with a kiss.

The most common types of leis are made from flowers or some type of botanical element, whether it be green leaves or vines. Dendrobium orchid leis are the most popular type of graduation ceremony gift because of their long-lasting quality. Purple is the most common color chosen for orchid leis, followed by white and green. Other graduation lei flower types are rose leis and carnation leis. Yellow roses are a popular choice for girl graduates because of their lovely fragrance and femininity. Carnations are also a great choice, for there are so many color options and therefore they are easier to match to the school’s colors—which is an important feature to consider when purchasing flowers for a grad."...

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Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams showcases a video of Stevie Wonder's 1973 R&B song "Superstition".

The content of this post is presented for cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Stevie Wonder for his musical legacy. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these examples on YouTube.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE STEVIE WONDER'S SONG "SUPERSTITION"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_(song)
"Superstition" is a popular song composed, produced, arranged, and performed by Stevie Wonder for Motown Records in 1972. It was the lead single for Wonder's album Talking Book,[1] and released in many countries. It reached number one in the U.S.,[2] and number one on the soul singles chart.[3] The song was Wonder's first number-one single since "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours" and topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973.[4] Overseas, it peaked at number eleven in the UK during February 1973. In November 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song at No. 74 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song's lyrics are chiefly concerned with superstitions,[2] mentioning several popular superstitious fables throughout the song, and deal with the negative effects superstitious beliefs can bring."...

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SHOWCASE VIDEO: Stevie Wonder ★ Superstition



Antony Sharmman, Uploaded on May 14, 2010

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LYRICS: SUPERSTITION
(Stevie Wonder)

Very superstitious, writings on the wall,
Very superstitious, ladders bout' to fall,
Thirteen month old baby, broke the lookin' glass
Seven years of bad luck, the good things in your past

When you believe in things that you don't understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition ain't the way

Very superstitious, wash your face and hands,
Rid me of the problem, do all that you can,
Keep me in a daydream, keep me goin' strong,
You don't wanna save me, sad is my song

When you believe in things that you don't understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition ain't the way, yeh, yeh

Very superstitious, nothin' more to say,
Very superstitious, the devil's on his way,
Thirteen month old baby, broke the lookin' glass,
Seven years of bad luck, good things in your past

When you believe in things that you don't understand,
Then you suffer, Superstition ain't the way, no, no, no

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/steviewonder/superstition.html

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Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series on African American influences on American square dancing and American square dance music.

This post showcases a video of an interview with American square dance caller, dancer, researcher, and author Phil Jamison whose 2015 book Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance demonstrates the complex origins and evolution of Appalachian dance and provides information about its significant African American sources.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/african-american-influences-on-american.html for Part II of this series. Part II presents information about and reviews of Phil Jamison's book.

Part II also showcases five videos of American square dancing, with particular emphasis on "the bird in the cage" figure which Jamison indicates is one of many square dance figures (movements) that is likely of African American origin.

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The content of this post is provided for historical, folkloric, and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the memories of African American square dance musicians. Thanks to Phil Jamison for his research and writing about American square dancing. Thanks to all those who are associated with this interview and YouTube video.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO: Phil Jamison 2 - African influences on American square dance



Square Dance Interviews Published on May 17, 2016

Phil Jamison discusses his research into the origins of American square dance in the south, and describes the key role that African-American musicians played . There are the well-known musical elements—the role of the banjo, for example—and Phil also points out that the first callers were African-American. Even some distinctive square dance features such as Birdie in the Cage may have African roots.

Recorded November 18, 2011, at the Dare To Be Square dance weekend, John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC. Interview conducted by David Millstone and videotaped by John-Michael Seng-Wheeler, with financial support provided by Country Dance and Song Society. This documentation is part of the Square Dance History Project...
-snip-
Note that the title of this video interview is "African Influences On American Square Dancing" instead of "African American Influences.." The emphasis on "African influences" may be because in this interview Phil Jamisons indicates that the banjo, improvisational dancing, call and response, and imitative bird dances are central to African traditions. Also in this interview, and, presumably in his book which I've not read yet, Phil Jamison references Black fiddlers playing and calling quadrilles and other country dances in the Caribbean and not just in the American South and in other regions of the United States.

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TRANSCRIPTION OF PHIL JAMISON's VIDEO ON AFRICAN AMERICAN INFLUENCE ON SQUARE DANCING
[Pancocojams Editor: This video provides portions of this interview. This is my unofficial transcription of these portions.. Additions and corrections are welcome.]

Phil Jamison:
“I believe that the figure “bird in the cage” is African American-originally. I can’t find any dance in the European tradition that has an individual dancer improvising within a ring and yet that is very very common in African dances. And in this country, um, all the slave dances were basically like that- a ring with an individual dancer improvising and dancing like a bird. There are-ah-various bird imitation dances that come from the African tradition.

If you look at the Southern, Southern music, we have-the main instruments, were fiddle, of Northern European, ah, brought it over. Ah but then [there’s the] African derived banjo. And the combination of the banjo, the African banjo with the European fiddle is really what made the music distinctive. And I see a similar thing with the dances and that I believe that the first dance callers were African American and that dance calling comes from African tradition. Ah, there’s a very strong tradition in African of call and response and ah all, you know, back as early as 1690, slaves were playing fiddles for white people’s dances ah before you had um ah, ah obviously before you had ah recorded music. To be ah un, to be a musician was a ah a service position and if- surely White people were playing fiddles, but slaves realized that if you knew how to play the fiddle, you wouldn’t be working in the field, but you would be playing for the dances in the big house. And not just slaves but free blacks played fiddles too, And you were in a, in a different strata.

There’s hundreds of instances that I could cite of slave fiddlers and free blacks playing the music for white people’s dances. And-think of it like this, if you’re ah un, if you’re going to have, if you are just going to have a dance in your house for your family and friends, you might play the fiddle, your music yourself. Um just like if you’re going to, ah have friends over for supper, you might cook the meal yourself. But say it’s a bigger event, like, ah ah wedding- you hire a caterer. You have somebody else do the cooking. And the same thing if it’s a public dance, or in the South, plantation balls, so obviously, the musicians were invariably black. And this is true for two hundred years. And these black musicians, ah, learned the European dance tunes so that they could play the European ah fiddle. Ah and, you know, many many slave advertisements, you know “Slave for sale, plays the fiddle really well” , ah, notes of runaway slaves “plays the fiddle”- you’d see those all the time. And ah, dancing masters owned slaves. They didn’t have a boom box- they had a slave who could provide the music for their dancing schools. And as early as the seventeen hundreds, there are references to slaves in the South doing country dances and cotillions. And the slaves didn’t go to dancing school to learn those things. And the only way they could have done them is for somebody to be prompting them.

The white people did not have-I mean I’m sure that the dancing masters may have prompting their students in the dancing school, but at a public dance, it wasn’t something you did. You learned the figures at dancing school and then you went to the ball. And ah, the very first documented dance callers were all African American musicians. The earliest I know about is about 1819 in New Orleans and ah the architect Latrobe was down there. He went to a dance and he said “This annoying musician up here is calling out the figures to the quadrilles. This is just not right. “ And within a few years, in the 1820s there are other references as far North as New York state and other places in the South ah where the references to black fiddlers who were calling out the dance figures at public dances. By the 1840s, 50s there were white people doing it too. And by mid century, dance manuals are giving instruction on how to prompt quadrilles. And the dancing masters of course didn’t like it because it’s going to put them out of business. Once, once you could call the dances, dancers didn’t have to go to school anymore. And it let the dances pass, you know, just out into the countryside and they could be spread through the folk tradition. You didn’t have to have the dancing masters.

And so, what this did was to, it, it made the dances more impromptu, improvisational- which is an African dance, music and dance tradition. And it really separated them from the European tradition. And to me the, the dance calling which is African American, is the single biggest ingredient that separated, you know, made this an American dance form as opposed to a European dance form.

And there were black fiddlers in New Hampshire, in the seventeen hundreds, and un ah and there was slavery in New England, so there were slave fiddlers in New England as well as in the South. And they were playing for the dancing schools, so obviously they were…, and they were playing for the dances. Ah, they were around these dances, they- and this was happening in the Caribbean too- we talk about the Caribbean quadrilles. Same thing happened there ah where there were slaves who were doing the European country dances and quadrilles and, basically adopted that. And but the slaves were not sent to dancing schools so the only way they could do these was by prompting them, shouting out the figures at, while they are doing the dances.

[Interviewer David Millstone] - So the early calling is African Americans calling for their people

Jamison – Sure

[Interviewer] – in settings like that but then starting to call at white, at white events.

Jamison – True. And, and the reactions of the whites, in particular the visiting Europeans was that is not right, this is not the way it should be done. And the dancing masters were saying we hope this will go away soon. But it didn’t. It caught on.

And ah, and to me, that’s that’s the biggest secret about these dances. And when you think about it, it’s, it’s the African banjo is what transformed the music and made our fiddle music American, as opposed to, it’s not, is no longer British fiddle music, but it’s American. Um, and, and frankly, if you think about, if you were to list the different kinds of music that are really, truly, America, what would you think of? You’d think of jazz, blues, rock and roll, tap dance

[Interviewer] – Bluegrass

[Jamison] – Bluegrass. And they all have black influence. So, it, it made me think, well it’s, you know these square dances, we think of as American, and ah, they are an American dance form, but what makes them American and sets them apart from the European dances is the black influence.

The thing about the Black square dance calling, I know, just ah, I should say, ah, this is what I say the evidence suggests, and you know, I have no proof, but um, it, cert- I’ve done a lot of research and this is certainly what it looks like. And if someone can find an example of a white caller that precedes these black callers, I’d love to hear about it, but I, I haven’t seen it yet. You know, surely the dancing masters prompted their students, but that’s different than calling out figures, spontaneously at a dance."

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This concludes Part I of this two part series on African American influences on American square dancing.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a two part pancocojams series on African American influences on American square dancing and American square dance music.

This post presents information about and reviews of Phil Jamison's book Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance. That book demonstrates the complex origins and evolution of Appalachian dance and provides information about its significant African American sources.

Part II also showcases five videos of American square dancing, with particular emphasis on "the bird in the cage" figure which Jamison indicates is one of many square dance figures (movements) that is likely of African American origin.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/square-dance-caller-researcher-phil.html. Part I showcases a video of an interview with American square dance caller, dancer, researcher, and author Phil Jamison whose 2015 book Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance demonstrates the complex origins and evolution of Appalachian dance and provides information about its significant African American sources.

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The content of this post is provided for historical, folkloric, and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the memories of African American square dance musicians. Thanks to Phil Jamison for his research and writing about American square dancing. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and all those who are featured in these embedded videos. Thanks also to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.

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SELECTED EXCERPTS OF ONLINE INFORMATION AND REVIEWS ABOUT PHIL JAMISON'S BOOK ABOUT AMERICAN SQUARE DANCING
Pancocojams Editor:
These excerpts are presented in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.

Excerpt #1
From https://www.cdss.org/images/newsletter_archives/articles/CDSS_News_fall_2015_review_hoedowns.pdf
by Tony Parkes is the author of Contra Dance Calling: A Basic Text, (Hands Four Productions, 2010)
..."Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics is a masterpiece of a book and a milestone in dance historiography. Phil Jamison has done what many would have thought impossible not so long ago: documented the development of dance forms whose history is chiefly oral. He has laid century-old myths to rest and produced persuasive evidence of the southern dance’s multicultural origins. And he has assembled his findings in a book that is both scholarly and readable.

Jamison is perhaps the ideal person for the task: he is at home in both academia (he teaches at Warren Wilson College) and the living world of traditional music and dance. He is a caller, a dance musician, and a percussive dancer; his long and varied experience includes thirty years of performing with the Green Grass Cloggers. His love of the dance has led him to seek and find hundreds of primary documents, most of which appear to have been overlooked until now (as he points out, when he began his research “there were no scholarly books devoted to Appalachian dance”). He has also attended dance events, conducted
interviews, and catalogued and analyzed nearly a hundred commercial recordings of the 1920s and 1930s. The calls on these recordings were intended to entertain the listener and are not necessarily danceable, but they provide an important window into the southern dance tradition before square dancing began to be standardized.

Jamison’s most important conclusion is that the southern dance is not, as Cecil Sharp claimed to believe, an ancient English dance form preserved nearly intact for centuries due to the isolation of mountain settlements. Rather, it draws on Scottish, Irish, French, Native American, and African traditions as well as English. Dance historians since at least the 1960s have dismissed Sharp’s theory as the product of extreme Anglophilia (and racism), but Jamison has assembled enough evidence to convince anyone. He points out that Appalachia was never as isolated as romantic writers led their readers to believe; the region enjoyed considerable trade with the rest of the world, and its settlers belonged to many ethnic groups.

Perhaps the most fascinating revelation is that the practice of calling the figures, which sets American group dancing apart from its ancestors and its cognates elsewhere, is an African-American invention. From the earliest days of non-Native settlement through the nineteenth century, most dance musicians in what is now the United States were people of color. As early as 1819, there are written accounts of black musicians calling. Jamison theorizes that the practice originated in the West Indies, the first stop in the New World for many slaves, as references to calling appear nearly simultaneously in many areas.

The bulk of the book is devoted to what can conveniently be called “square dancing,” whether done in four-couple squares, large circles, or longways sets. There are also chapters on step dancing, couple dances, and the cakewalk, as well as on the relations between dance and religion.

Appendices include an analysis of the commercial recordings, a three-part glossary, copious notes and
twenty-four pages of bibliography. A companion website, http://www.philjamison.com/, contains audio files of the recordings, along with a generous selection of paintings, photographs and videos depicting “...

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Excerpt #2:
From https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chasing-the-rabbit-in-dc/2016/01/21/efc338cc-b8ac-1
Chasing the rabbit in D.C. By Gabriel Popkin January 22, 2016
"Roughly one Saturday night each month, government lawyers, nonprofit leaders, computer programmers, activists and creative professionals gather by the hundreds in a church in the middle of the nation’s capital and perform dance moves with names such as “duck for the oyster,” “push pa, shove ma” and “chase the rabbit, chase the squirrel.” Then they swing and promenade their partners to live fiddle music and the instructions of a dance caller...

The dance form does admittedly have some unfortunate associations to overcome, and not just because of the Virginia reels that many of us were forced to perform in gym class. Folk dance can seem fusty and arcane, and its supposed purity has led to it being appropriated at times to promote retrograde, nativistic ideologies.

But important new scholarship should put such simplistic and erroneous ideas to rest for good. Dance caller and historian Phil Jamison from Asheville, N.C., argues convincingly in his 2015 book, “Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance,” that American square dance is not a colonial relic from the British Isles, but rather a uniquely American syncretism of European, African and Native American influences. Perhaps most surprising, Jamison found that having a dance caller prompting the steps — a practice that is integral to square dancing and numerous other “traditional” dance forms — was unheard of in Europe and seems to have its roots in the African call-and-response patterns that slaves brought to the New World.

Before calling became routine, you had to go to dance school to learn the dances. Calling made square dancing accessible to everyone, regardless of skill, experience or wealth — in other words, it made it a true folk dance. The District’s dancers, who come from all over the world and from all ages, ethnicities and walks of life, continue to benefit from this democratization today.”...

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Excerpt #3:
From http://www.philjamison.com/hoedowns-reels-and-frolics/
Book summary:
"In Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics, old-time musician and flatfoot dancer Phil Jamison journeys into the past and surveys the present to tell the story behind the square dances, step dances, reels, and other forms of dance practiced in southern Appalachia. He argues that these distinctive folk dances are not the unaltered jigs and reels of the early British settlers, but hybrids that developed over time by adopting and incorporating elements from other popular forms. He traces the forms from their European, African American, and Native American roots to the modern day. From the Shoo-fly Swing to the Virginia Reel, Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics reinterprets an essential aspect of Appalachian culture.
-snip-
[Note that the cover of this book is a painting of Black musicians and dancers at a “frolic” (dance event)

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Review:
"The real complexity of American history is slowly, finally, being uncovered; Phil Jamison shines a beautifully well researched light on the birth of folk dance and music in these United States. He manages to dispel several well-worn myths in the process, and has Native and particularly African-American influences in their rightful place alongside the Anglo in the evolution of our indigenous folk traditions. The true history is far more interesting than the fantasy, and Jamison's thoughtful treatise will have you re-evaluating what you thought you knew about Square Dance--this ain't just a do-si-do in the school gym!"--Rhiannon Giddens, member of the Grammy Award–winning band Carolina Chocolate Drops"

**
Review:
"For anyone interested in the history of American square dance and clogging, Phil Jamison's book is required (and enjoyable) reading. This is by far the most ambitious and comprehensive work on the subject yet, featuring a wealth of quotations from historical sources that the author has meticulously researched as well as his own extensive firsthand knowledge of the subject. Jamison refutes some long-held myths (for example, that the Appalachian square dance is an ancient and pure form of English country dance) and brings to light heretofore overlooked historical information (such as the significant role of African American dancers, musicians, and callers). Not only does he cover a large number of pertinent subjects (from early 78 rpm recordings of regional callers, to the history of the Virginia Reel, couple dances, and cakewalks), but he presents some pointed criticism of past popularizers. There may even be a few ruffled feathers, but, to me, an important by-product of serious scholarship is to stimulate further discussion and research. Well done, Mr. Jamison!"--Bob Dalsemer, square and contra dance caller and author of West Virginia Square Dances"

**
Review:
"Appalachian dancer, dance scholar, and lover of dance Phil Jamison has crafted an artfully written, finely researched, groundbreaking, and comprehensive history of the multiple dance forms known as Appalachian dance. In dispelling myths of Appalachian isolation and whiteness, Jamison describes the transmission of dances through the vibrant commerce that flowed along the Ohio River and its tributaries—the backdoor to Appalachia—linking Pittsburgh to New Orleans and the central and southern Appalachians in between. Grounding his rich and detailed descriptions in a carefully crafted analysis of the ethnic diversity in the Southern backcountry, Jamison details the importance of European, African American, and Native American dance to the Southern square dances, social dances, and step dance traditions, as well as the contemporary dance forms popular in the twenty-first century." --Patricia Beaver, professor emerita, Appalachian State University"

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SHOWCASE VIDEOS OF THE SQUARE DANCE FIGURE: THE BIRD IN THE CAGE
Example #1: Traditional Square Dance - Birdie In The Cage



RubberCrutches, Uploaded on Mar 8, 2010

Located in the Appalachian Plateau of the United States in Saegertown, Pennsylvania stands the "Wild Country Dance Hall". Local folks still dance square dancing in the old traditional square dance fashion to caller, Dan Freligh and his Digital Band, on Friday nights.

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Example #2: Double Birdie square dance



SquareDanceHistory, Uploaded on Dec 12, 2011

Larry Edelman calls a variation of Birdie in the Cage at the Dare To Be Square weekend held November 18-20, 2011, at the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC.

Musicians are Steve Hickman and Jim Morrison, fiddles; Claudio Buchwald, piano; Sam Bartlett, banjo. The tune is "Butcher's Row."

The weekend was sponsored by the Folk School and by Country Dance and Song Society. It brought six well-known callers and 70 square dance enthusiasts together to explore many different styles of squares, including both traditional and modern. The organizers will post additional video clips-- watch this space!-- as well as make audio clips and a syllabus available.

This video posting is part of the Square Dance History Project. More information about us can be found here: http://www.SquareDanceHistory.org

Recorded 19 November 2011 by John-Michael Seng-Wheeler and David Millstone

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Example #3: Dances of Jerry Goodwin 1a - Birdie in the Cage (teaching)



SquareDanceHistory, Uploaded on Dec 18, 2011

Larry Edelman led a workshop session on dances he learned from the calling of Jerry Goodwin, originally from West Virginia but living and calling in western Pennsylvania when Larry studied with him in the 1970s. Some of the dances were ones Jerry had learned from his father.

This was recorded at Dare To Be Square on November 19, 2011, at the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC. Additional support for the weekend, including for this videotaping by John-Michael Seng-Wheeler, was provided by Country Dance and Song Society (CDSS). The weekend brought together six well-known callers and some 70 square dance enthusiasts from around the country to explore different traditional and modern styles.

This clip shows Larry teaching the figures; you'll find a separate video with the actual dancing dancing. Each Brasstown workshop also has a sampler, with a short excerpt of each dance.

Musicians for this session were Claudio Buchwald and Steve Hickman, fiddles; Jim Morrison, guitar; and Sam Bartlett, banjo.

These videos are part of the Square Dance History Project. You can read more about us here: http://www.SquareDanceHistory.org


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Example #4: Dances of Jerry Goodwin 1b - Birdie in the Cage



SquareDanceHistory Uploaded on Dec 18, 2011

Larry Edelman led a workshop session on dances he learned from the calling of Jerry Goodwin, originally from West Virginia but living and calling in western Pennsylvania when Larry studied with him in the 1970s. Some of the dances were ones Jerry had learned from his father. This version of Birdie in the Cage puts the active woman, and then her partner, into the center without the other dancers having to drop hands. A separate video shows Larry teaching the figure; this one shows the dancing.

This was recorded at Dare To Be Square on November 19, 2011, at the John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC. Additional support for the weekend, including for this videotaping by John-Michael Seng-Wheeler, was provided by Country Dance and Song Society (CDSS). The weekend brought together six well-known callers and some 70 square dance enthusiasts from around the country to explore different traditional and modern styles.

In some cases, you'll find a separate video with instructions / walkthrough; in others, the teaching comes at the beginning of the clip, and in some cases you'll just see the dancing. Each Brasstown workshop also has a sampler, with a short excerpt of each dance.

Musicians for this session were Claudio Buchwald and Steve Hickman, fiddles; Jim Morrison, guitar; and Sam Bartlett, banjo. The tune is "Boil that Cabbage Down."

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Example #5: Jerry Goodwin Calls Birdie in the Cage





Larry Edelman Published on Dec 3, 2013

Recorded at a square dance on February 7, 1987 at the Prosperity Fire Hall, Washington County, PA.
Jerry Goodwin, Caller

Mountain Express

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This concludes Part II of this two part pancocojams series on African influences On American square dancing.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post provides an excerpt from the book Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance by Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns (first edition published in 1968; second edition published in 1994).

The content of this post is presented for historical, folkloric, and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the memory of early African American dance inventors, dancers, song composers, and singers. Thanks also to Thomas W. Talley for his collection of African American folk songs and dances, and thanks to Marshall and Jean Stearns for their research and writing. And thanks to all others who are quoted in this post.

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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2012/10/la-pas-ma-la-songs-dance.html for an earlier pancocojams post on the "Pas Ma La" dance.

Also, click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/square-dance-caller-researcher-phil.html for Part I of a two part series on the African influence on American square dance.

Additional pancocojams posts that are related to this post on early African American dancing can be found by clicking the tags that are given below.

Pancocojams Editor's note:
Some of the song lyrics that are found in this post are written in dialect and contain the referent that is commonly referred to as "the n word". As per the policy of this blog, that word isn't fully spelled out in this post.

Also, note that the 1968 Jazz Dance book uses either the referent "Afro-American" or "Negro" for the population now referred to as "African American". Neither "Afro-American" nor "Negro" are currently used as referents for this population.

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Pancocojams Editor:
The Jazz Dance chapter that is partially quoted in this pancocojams post refers to the song "Jonah's Band" which is featured in Thomas W. Talley's 1922 book Negro Folk Rhymes. Here's that song (given "as is" except for an abbreviation for the "n word")

JONAH'S BAND SONG

Setch a kickin' up san'! Jonah's Ban'!
Setch a kickin' up san'! Jonah's Ban'!

"Han's up sixteen! Circle to de right!
We's gwine to git big eatin's here to-night."

Setch a kickin' up san'! Jonah's Ban'!
Setch a kickin' up san'! Jonah's Ban'!

"Raise yo' right foot, kick it up high,
Knock dat Mobile Buck in de eye."

Setch a kickin' up san'! Jonah's Ban'!
Setch a kickin' up san'! Jonah's Ban'!

"Stan' up, flat foot, Jump dem Bars!
Karo back'ards lak a train o' kyars."

Setch a kickin' up san'! Jonah's Ban'!
Setch a kickin' up san'! Jonah's Ban'!

“Dance 'round, Mistiss, show 'em de p'int;
Dat Ni**er don't know how to Coonjaint."


From https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27195/27195-h/27195-h.htmNegro Folk Rhymes: Wise and Otherwise, by Thomas W. Talley (1922), Page 1

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BOOK EXCERPT: JAZZ DANCE: THE STORY OF AMERICAN VERNACULAR DANCES
by Marshall Stearns & Jean Stearns
From Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0306805537; Chapter Title: The Tin Pan Alley And Song Lyrics

Page 99

"At an early date lyrics were created to go with dances. “The Dance Rhyme was derived from the dance.” wrote Thomas W. Talley in 1922

Page 100

and-as in the similar example of the Juba discussed in Chapter 4- illustrates his point with a dance called Jonah’s Band.

"First of all be it known that there is a “step” in dancing, originated by some Negro somewhere called the “Jonah’s Band step”…The dancers form a circle placing two or more of their skilled dancers in the middle of it…Some dance leaders, for example simple call out in simple prose- “Dance the “Mobile Buck”, others calling for another step would rhyme their call.”

The chorus of the song consists of the repetition of the line “Setch a kickin up san’. Jonah’s Ban’!” to a Charleston rhythm at which point all the dancers execute the same step.

Before each of three choruses other steps are introduced.

"Han's up sixteen! Circle to de right!
We's gwine to git big eatin's here to-night."

"Raise yo' right foot, kick it up high,
Knock dat Mobile Buck in de eye."

"Stan' up, flat foot, [1]Jump dem Bars!
Karo back'ards lak a train o' kyars."

“Dance 'round, Mistiss, show 'em de p'int;
Dat Ni**er don't know how to Coonjaint."

The Karo and Jump Dem Bars seem to have disappeared without a trace, although the latter is self-explanatory, and a flat-footed bar-jump is typically Afro-American. Old-timers say that the Mobile Buck is an ancestor of the common Buck, which evolved into the Time Step, while the prolific Coonjaint-once a rhythmic shuffle performed by roustabouts loading riverboats and a dance observed in Congo Square-later became identified with the tune of a children’s play-party song (“I love coffee, I love tea...).

In its early folk form the dance song with instructions is a group dance performed in a circle with a few “experts” in the center-and the emphasis is on what they do. An apparently unlimited number of locally known steps are inserted and improvised upon by the experts. The entire performance is held together by the chorus of dancers forming the circle and executing the steps that gives the dance its title. The description of inserted dances is brief if it occurs at all (in the Juba, the inserted steps are merely named) and little editorializing as to its purported origin, nature, or popularity-gimmicks that became common later, when the dances were commercialized.

A transitional dance-song entitled “La Pas Ma La” (Isaac Goldberg says that phrase comes from the French pas mele*, or mixed step) was published in 1865-perhaps the dance introduced by Ernest Hogan and his Georgia Graduates as the Pasmala. As one of the early efforts to combine folk steps with topical dances of the time, the “Pas Ma La” describes its title step in the chorus

Hands on your head, let your mind roll far,

Page 101

Back, back, back, and look at the stars.
Stand up rightly, dance it brightly.
That’s the Pas Ma La.

Old-timers recall the step clearly. “It was a comedy dance,” says Walter Crumbley. “You walked forward and then hopped back three steps with your knees bent” as the directions “back, back, back” indicate. The hand on hand and mind-rolling appear to be optional variations.

The “Pas Ma La” was sometimes confused with an animal dance, which may have added to its survival, for by 1898 a song entitled “The Possum-a-la” was published, one of a series of dance-songs that popped up with titles such as “The Possum Trot” around 1910. “The Possum Trot” says Perry Bradford “was a dance which consisted of a series of fast, flat hops.” Here, the folk tradition which favored a flat-footed style, seems to have become stronger, while blending with the Tin Pan Alley version.

Again, other steps are introduced before each chorus in four verses of the “Pas Ma La”
Fus yo’ say “My ni**ah get yo gun
Shoot-a dem ducks an away you run.
Now my little coon come-a and dance the shute
With the Saint-a Louis pass and Chicago Salute.

The literal direction in the first two lines in which the dancer acts out the shooting of a duck is typical of many vernacular dances and finds an analogue in a rock and roll dance of the early nineteen sixties: The Peter Gunn: emulating a fast-shooting private eye on television. The Saint Louis pass and Chicago Salute are apparently topical concoctions of Tin Pan Alley references to the World’s Fairs.

Another introductory quatrain contains references to three more dances which are better known:
Fus yo’ say “My ni**ah, Bumbishay
Then turn ‘round and go the other way
To the World’s Fair and do the Turkey Trot
Do not dat coon tink he look very hot.

The various spellings of Bumbishay (mentioned along with the Eagle Rock, the Mooche, and Hootchy-Ma-Cootch-which is the Congo Grind- in pianist Jelly Roll Morton’s “Animule Ball”) was known in New Orleans, according to Paul Barbarin, as the “Fanny Bump”- which needs no explanation. Going to the World’s Fair was a strut (“you put both feet together and move forward on your toes” says Ida Forsyne), while the appearance of the Turkey Trot here, about fifteen years before it became a hit in New York, suggest that it came from the folk.

In spite of the atrocious dialect and Jim Crow sentiments, the lyrics of “Pas Ma La” reveal the nature of the changes taking place in the dance-

page 102
sing as it became commercialized. It is clearly no longer a group dance with improvised soloists, but rather a couple dance with fixed steps in definite order. Although the verse names new steps, and the chorus describes the main step, the aim is to sell the dance.

During the early teens and after, the dance-song with instructions multiplied rapidly, and a few, chiefly Negro composers, drew upon folk resources. These few became more influential than their numbers indicate, for although their popularity was limited at first to the Negro public, they gradually-as in the case of “Ballin The Jack”-reached a white audience. This led the way to the more enduring dances of the twenties and thirties that are often named and sometimes described in the earlier dance songs Tin Pan Alley was contributing indirectly to the surfacing of vernacular dance movements.
-snip-
*This French word was written with accent marks.

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Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post provides information about and examples of the African American originated children's singing game "All Around The Kitchen".

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, and recreational purposes.

The Addendum to this post features a picture book with the title "All Around The Kitchen". This sing along storybook is a jazz flavored adaptation of that singing game.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the unknown composer of this singing game and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to all those who are featured in these videos and thanks to all those who published these examples on YouTube.
-snip-
The two line rhyming verses (couplets) that are found in singing games such as "All Around The Kitchen" are similar to the rhyming patter of square dance callers. Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/square-dance-caller-researcher-phil.html for Part I of a two part series on the African influence on American square dance.

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INFORMATION ABOUT AND LYRICS FOR THE SINGING GAME "ALL AROUND THE KITCHEN"
This is an amended version of a comment that I wrote in 2007 on the Mudcat folk music forum in response to a query about the singing game "All Around The Kitchen". I've added some additional verses to the ones that I shared in 2007 and have also added and reformatted the performance direction comments.

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=104001 Lyr Add:: all around the kitchen cock-a-doodle [Lyr=Lyrics; Add=Additions]

"Oh!! I like that song! I sang this song with my children when they were litte, and they loved it. And I've used it as part of my repertoire of children's songs at the Alafia Children's Ensemble after-school groups that I facilitated for children 5-12 years old. In addition, I've included it in my repertoire of movement songs for children at summer camps, I encouraged the teen camp aides and adults camp counselors {leaders of specific groups whose roles are somewhat like teachers} to join in the performance of this song. And many of them enjoyed do so.

"All Around The Kitchen" is a call & response song which is improvisational and open ended, so you can use any rhyming couplets that you want which give movement directions.

Here's the words that I usually use for this singing game:

ALL AROUND THE KITCHEN

Chorus:
Leader: All around the kitchen
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do

Leader: All around the kitchen
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do

Verse 1
Leader: Now you stop right still
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do
Leader: Put your hands on your hips
Everyone: Cock-a-doodle doodle do
Leader: And let your right foot slip
Everyone: Cock-a-doodle doodle do

Chorus

Verse 2
Leader: Now you stop right still
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do
Leader: And you turn around
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do
Leader: Then you touch the ground
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do

Chorus

Verse 3:
Leader: Now you stop right still
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do
And you touch your toes
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do
Then you touch your nose
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do

Chorus

Verse 4
Leader: Now you stop right still
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do
Leader: Put your hand on your ear.
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do
Leader: And leave it right there
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do

Verse 5
Leader: Now you stop right still
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do
Leader: Put your hands in the sky
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do
Leader: And wave them up high
Everyone: Cock-a-doddle doodle do
-snip-
The leader can repeat any verse that she (or he) chooses to whenever she (or he) wants to.

DIRECTIONS:
Participants stand in a vertical line with a designated leader in front. That person leads the group in strutting in an often zig zag motion around the room or the designated play area while she (or he) and the rest of the group sings the chorus.

On the words "cock-a-doodle-do" the entire group imitates a rooster by acting like they have wings (put their right hand and their left hand in their arm pits and move them up and down to the beat).

When the leader sings "Now you stop right till", everyone stops in place.

The leader sing the rhyming command, and demonstrates how to do that command. The rest of the group then copies the leader's "motion".

The leader starts moving around the room again and everyone in the line follows her (or him).

Everyone sings "cock-a-doodle do" and moves their arms up and down like a rooster.

This pattern continues until the leader ends the singing game.

Additional notes:
"Let your right foot slip" is found in versions of "Little Sally Walker"("Little Sally Waters") and some other African American originated singing games.

Here's how I taught this motion
Stand still and then (on the beat)
1.extend your right foot out in front of you & touch the ground with your right toe
2. remain facing forward but point your toe right in back of you
3. moving your right foot back to its original position next to the left foot.
-snip-
In another comment on that same discussion thread, I wrote that
"Given its call & response, improvisational, and open-ended format, I think [that "All Around The Kitchen"] is of African American origin.

The use of that "let your right foot slip" verse also leads me to believe that All Around the Kitchen is of African American origin-or we took adopted it from elsewhere and made it our own."
-snip-
I also noted in that discussion that the after school children's group that I founded and the special programming sessions where I performed (in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area) were predominately attended by African Americans. However, no one knew this song or this "let your right foot slip" movement command.
-snip-
I learned "All The Kitchen" when I was a child from Mrs. Janie Owens, a Vacation Bible School teacher who shared this singing game (and the "In The River On The Bank" movement game) with the children who attended that church summer program. Mrs. Owens said that she learned these games when she was a child in the South (if I recall correctly, I think she said that she was from Georgia.)

****
Here are three other comments from that Mudcat discussion thread:

Subject: RE: Folklore: all around the kitchen cock-a-doodle
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 14 Aug 07 - 08:54 AM

"Hi all ... here's a little background for the song as far as I know it.

"All Around In the Kitchen" was its title when this ring game song was recorded in 1940 by John A. and Ruby T. Lomax in the countryside near York, Alabama. I believe that is its first appearance, I don't know of any earlier version.

Ruth Crawford Seeger published it in American Folk Songs for Children in 1948, and it got into a lot of school music curriculums because that book was widely circulated among educators. She dropped the word "In" from the title for whatever reason.

Pete Seeger recorded it in the early 1950s on a Folkways album for children, also as "All Around the Kitchen." This gave it even more circulation. That's where I learned it. Hooray for LP records. :)

Bob"

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Subject: RE: Folklore: all around the kitchen cock-a-doodle
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 14 Aug 07 - 08:58 AM

"And Azizi, I should add that the song was sung by a group of African-American children, which confirms your opinion. Bob"

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Subject: RE: Folklore: all around the kitchen cock-a-doodle
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Aug 07 - 09:28 AM

"Bob Coltman wrote:
"Ruth Crawford Seeger published it in American Folk Songs for Children in 1948, and it got into a lot of school music curriculums because that book was widely circulated among educators."

Mike & Peggy Seeger have recorded an album (now a 2XCD set) of the songs in this book, including "All Around The Kitchen".

This is certainly one of my favourite albums - it got us through so many long-distance car journeys with our son, who now has his own band. I wonder how many of these songs will eventually crop up in punky-ska versions?

Norman"

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SHOWCASE EXAMPLES
Example #1: All Around The Kitchen



David Nicholson, Uploaded on May 2, 2009

Willow Creek Elemenatry, Centennial Colorado. 1st Graders Spring Music Program. April 30, 2009.

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Example #2 Dan Zanes and Friends- All Around the Kitchen



Dan Zanes, Uploaded on Jun 1, 2010

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Example #3: All Around the Kitchen



dpcinva, Published on Jun 10, 2014

MPTS Kindergarten Program - June 2014

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Example #4: Pete Seeger-All Around the Kitchen



UltimateSerge, Published on Mar 13, 2013

On American Folk, Game and Activity Songs for Children. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED

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ADDENDUM: All Around the Kitchen Singalong Storybook Trailer



Music Together, Published on Nov 4, 2013

Dance "All Around the Kitchen" with a singing rooster, pots and pans, potatoes and pancakes—and see peanut butter and jelly fall in love!

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases the Gospel song "Fugena" by the Namibian Gospel group Kolesa Gospel Band.

Selected comments from this video's discussion thread are also included in this post.

Some commenters shared that this song is in the Chokwe language. If you understand this language, please share this song's lyrics or at least a summary of this song in English or in Portuguese or French or some other language that can be translated via Google translate. Thanks!

Information about the Chokwe people is also included in this post.

****
The content of this post is presented for religious, cultural, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Kolesa Gospel Band for this beautiful song. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHOKWE ETHNIC GROUP
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chokwe_people
"The Chokwe people, also called Ciokwe, Cokwe, Tchokwe, Bajokwe or Badjok, are an ethnic group of Central and Southern Africa. They are found primarily in Angola, south-western parts of Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa to Lualaba), and northwestern parts of Zambia.[1]"...

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SHOWCASE VIDEO: KOLESA Gospel Band - Fungena (official video)



INCH Videos, Published on May 24, 2016
-snip-
Selected comments from this video's discussion thread. These comments are numbered for referencing purposes only.
1. acacio zeza uanda, 2016
"Sou da tribo chokwe, fiquei surpreso em ver este grupo KOLESA. GOSTARIA DE FAZER ALGUMAS PERGUNTAS.1. ESTE GRUPO É DE QUE PAIS EM AFRICA?2. EU SOU DE ANGOLA DA REGIAO LESTE E FALO CHOKWE.3. TENHO MUITO INTERESSE EM SABER DOS MEUS IRMAOS, POIS ESTOU SURPRESO E MUITO EM VER ALGUEM QUE FALA MINHA LINGUAPROFESSOR DOUTOR ACACIO ZEZA UANDAAGUARDO NOTICIASMERCI BEACOUP"
-snip-
[Google translate from Portuguese to English]
"I'm from the chokwe tribe, I was surprised to see this KOLESA group. I WOULD LIKE TO DO SOME QUESTIONS. THIS GROUP IS WHAT COUNTRY IN AFRICA? I AM FROM ANGOLA FROM THE EAST REGION AND I SPEAK CHOKWE.3. I HAVE A LOT OF INTEREST IN KNOWING MY BROTHERS, BECAUSE I AM SURPRISE AND VERY VERY VERY SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS MY LINGUA PROFESSOR DOCTOR ACACIO ZEZA UANDAAGUARDO NEWSMERCI BEACOUP" [French "Thank you."

**
2. acacio zeza uanda, 2016
"Moyoweno
I am this Tchokwe , tribe living in Angola . I liked
the music very much. I would like to know this group is that country?
parabens my brothers , not imagined to find my tribe
elsewhere .please would like to see more of this music
group abençado. DR . Acacio Zeza wanda"

**
3. Iyaloo Konstantinus, 2016
"Very nice gospel song, what language is this?"

**
Reply
4. Jakob Muleka, 2017
"Chokwe"

**
5. Brenda Wellano, 2016
"Which country you are from?"

**
Reply
6. INCH Videos, 2016
"Namibia"

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.



Faussy Lala6 months ago
I love this band. I wished I can understand the language
Reply
Jakob Muleka5 months ago
It is nice song in My Language (Chokwe) and the song is available in the Hym book

acacio zeza uanda10 months ago
Moyoweno
I am this Tchokwe , tribe living in Angola . I liked
the music very much. I would like to know this group is that country?
parabens my brothers , not imagined to find my tribe
elsewhere .please would like to see more of this music
group abençado. DR . Acacio Zeza wanda

Eddited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases the Gospel song "Ni Lesa fye" by Zambian Gospel singer Karen Chintelelwe.

Information about Zambia, information about the Bembe language that I believe is used for this song, and information about this vocalist are also included in this post. In addition, this post presents selected comments from this video's discussion thread and from another YouTube sound file of Karen __ 's performance of this song.

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The content of this post is presented for religious, cultural, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Karen Chintelelwe for this beautiful song. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE: REQUEST THAT PUBLISHERS OF YOUTUBE VIDEOS INCLUDE INFORMATION ABOUT THE VIDEOS THAT THEY PUBLISH ON YOUTUBE [with the sub-title: How I found some information about Zambian Gospel singer Karen Chintelelwe and her song Ni Lesafye]

There are two YouTube videos and one sound files with the title "Ni Lesafye" by Karen (no last name given). There are other YouTube videos and sound files with this title by other singers who are presumably from Zambia as this examples are given in Zambia's YouTube listings. Unfortunately, only a few of the YouTube examples of this song include comments and none of them include any information about the language used, or any song lyrics or any information about the meaning of the song's title in English or any other language, or any summary of this song in any language.

It's true that you can arrive at a general sense of what this song means by reading the comments in the discussion thread for the video that is featured in this post, but it would be very helpful to those who don't understand this language (and don't even know which language it is) if the YouTube publisher and/or the commenters who do understand this language would be considerate of those who don't understand the language/s that the singers are using.

I tried to find online lyrics for "Ni Lesafye" as sung by Karen or by anyone else-, but had no success.

I then tried googling the words "Ni Kesafye" and only got one "hit"- a Google book about Bemba language proverbs:

Google Book: "PA NSAKA" BEMBA PROVERBS & SAYINGS 1 (Explained both in English and Bemba)
By Joseph Mwila Bwembya
p. 151
"proverb 955

a) Lesafye eukancimfisahako nokulandula abalwani bani
b) God is my avenger"
-snip-
I learned from that Google book page that the word "Lesafye" translates to "God" in English. Having read the comments in that video's discussion thread, I had guessed that the song was about God helping people in their times of need. And I was glad to learn which word in that song's title means "God" (note: "Lesafye" is also given as "Lesa fye" in that video's discussion thread.)

That Google book about Bemba proverbs also suggested the language that the vocalist used for that song was was Bemba. However, because I didn't know anything about the Bemba people/language, I needed to confirm that Bembas were a Zambian ethnic group. So I googled "Bemba ethnic group" and clicked on the Wikipedia link for "Bemba". That Wikipedia page confirmed that Bemba people are from Zambia.

I then googled "Karen Zambian Gospel singer" and found this singer's first and last name. That led me to the article excerpt that is given below and this link to an August 2016 Gospel video by Karen with her full name "Karen Chintelelwe Official Video"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVmhO8o_NM8

The point of this note is that it shouldn't be this difficult for people throughout the world to find information about music videos and vocalists who feature their music on an international platform such as YouTube.

I'm sorry that I don't understand any language but English, and sometimes I may not even be able to guess which language it is or which nation it comes from.

Please help people throughout the world who appreciate African music and want to know more about the songs that are showcased on YouTube by adding information about the songs that you share on YouTube-including by identifying the nation or nations where the vocalists are from, identifying the language or languages that are used in the song, and sharing a summary of the song's meaning if not the lyrics themselves. And please share that information in English, or French or Portuguese or Spanish, or Swahili or Yoruba as these are some of the languages that can be translated by the Google translate feature as it is found to date.

Thank you.

****
INFORMATION ABOUT ZAMBIA
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambia
"Zambia ... officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa,[8] neighbouring the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is Lusaka, in the south-central part of Zambia. The population is concentrated mainly around Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt Province to the northwest, the core economic hubs of the country."...

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE BEMBA ETHNIC GROUP
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bemba_people
"The Bemba (or 'BaBemba' using the Ba- prefix to mean 'people of', and also called 'Awemba' or 'BaWemba' in the past) belong to a large group of Bantu peoples mainly in the Northern, Luapula and Copperbelt Provinces of Zambia who trace their origins to the Luba and Lunda states of the upper Congo basin, in what became Katanga Province in southern Congo-Kinshasa (DRC). They are one of the larger ethnic group in Zambia. (A few other tribes in the Northern, Luapula and Copperbelt provinces of Zambia speak languages that are similar to Bemba but are not the same (E.g. Lamba, Mambwe, Bisa etc.). Bemba history is a major historical phenomenon in the development of chieftainship in a large and culturally homogeneous region of central Africa."

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INFORMATION ABOUT KAREN CHINTELELWE
From http://lusakavoice.com/2013/08/20/karen-arguably-the-finest-gospel-diva-of-her-generation/"Karen, arguably the finest gospel diva of her generation"
20/08/2013, [by] FELIX NYAMBE – Zambia Daily Mail

[...]

"Karen
Arguably the finest gospel diva of her generation, Karen has always been an inspiring minister of the gospel that she is intended to be.

She burst on the Christian music with some defining gem of an album titled Enough, on which she staggered and castigated the devil and his elements.
The album contained songs such as Azayankha, Ni Lesa Fye, Muzimu Oyera, Set Boundaries, Umubili Tautasha and Ngafweni Lesa.

I marvelled at the only video of Ngafweni Lesa and I guess there is nothing refreshing like the song itself when Karen sings her worship song.

She later announced that other videos, in addition to her stunning Chintelelwe from her previous album Who Can Say?, will be unveiled to the market “soon”."...

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SHOWCASE VIDEO - Karen Ni Lesafye



sfezed, Published on Dec 17, 2012
-snip-
Here are some selected comments from this video's discussion thread with numbers assigned for referencing purposes only:

1. Josephine Mutale, 2014
"ni lesafya chachina, its true its only god who makes things easier, love this song... our god is good, thanks for posting."

**
2. Peter Chitabanta, 2014
"I will never stop listening to this music because of my elder sister who had it as a tone after the loss of her husband last year!..... I have never my sister so passionate about God.... This song changed her whole being!....Keep it up Karen it is true ni Lesa fye. "It's only God" who can do it!"

**
3.Patrick Lupanda, 2014
"awe chachina, We can only manage with the almighty GOD."

**
4. Abigail Phiri, 2014
"Ni Lesa fye for real. Great song karen. It strengthens me"

**
5. Refilwe Molefi, 2015
"Guys please share lyrics, i love Zambian music, and i feel this song. I have no idea what the song is saying, i love the beat, the calmity of the song. Please translate as you post lyrics. Thank you."

**
Reply
6. Refilwe Molefi, 2015
"Thank you Kassy, okay summarize it for me. I have to learn this language. God bless.
-snip-
I didn't find any comment from Kassy in this discussion thread and no responses to Refilwe Molefi's request are shown as of the date of this pancocojams post.

**
7. Veronica Chipatela, 2016
"great song God bless zambia"
-snip-
This comment indicated that this video was from Zambia. That wasn't indicated in the video summary.

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A shorter video of Karen singing this song is also found on YouTube "Karen Ni Lesa Fye Video Clip" by
Eugene kass (Feb 11, 2013). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsYTPr_ro9g. As of this date that video has only one comment - by Abigail Phiri, 2013 "Great song, strengthens me."

****
A sound file entitled "Ni Lesa fye" was published on YouTube by destinyhive on December 19, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgBIKrVby7c. That publisher didn't give the singer's name, but did add in the summary that this was "Zambian Gospel Music".
A commenter wrote that the singer's name is Karen, in response to a request for that information by another commenter.

Here are selected comments from this sound file (numbers assigned for referencing purposes only)
1. Larson Mutembu, 2012
"Wonderful & encouranging song & good singing. Yes, it's only God who can help us & it's His power & grace that is able to sustain us in all that we go through."

**
2. george chisanga, 2012
"THIS SONG I FIRST HEARD FROM MY I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DESCRIBE THE RELATIONSHIP, ANYWAY I WAS SO TOUCHED SUCH THAT I BROKE INTO TEARS, I AM GOING THROUGH HARD TIMES WHERE THERE SEEMS TO BE NO LIGHT AT THE END,I WAS REALLY LOOKING FOR THIS SONG AND THANKS FOR POSTING IT, JUST BELIEVING FOR THE BEST AND TRUSTING GOD BECAUSE NILESAFYE"

**
3. cabica benjani, 2013
"I love this song! its so true ;- Ni Lesa fye ine...namaka yakwe...Amen..can some one be kind enough 2 tell me who sang this song pls..where can i find her songs"

**
Reply
4. mitchelle chiyala, 2013
"her name is karen her songs are on cd,shes gt good songs"

**
6. Mulotwa Mulewa, 2015
"Indeed it is out of the grace of the almighty that we manage ,not out of our own powers.thanks to all who contributed and may the glory be to the almighty Jehovah. Mathews 5 vs 16"

**
6. Chase Johnstone, 2016
"Ni Lesa fye, the song is beautiful thanks to the singer."

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Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Eddited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases South African singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka's late 1980s hit song "Umqombothi" ("African Beer").

Particular attention is given in this post to a sample of comments from African people about their childhood memories about Yvonne Chaka Chaka's record "Umquombothi". These comments reflect the unity that Africans have experienced and can experience as a result of recorded music from one African nation being popularized throughout the entire African continent and beyond.

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The content of this post is presented for cultural, recreational, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Yvonne Chaka Chaka for her musical legacy and social activism. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.

****
INFORMATION ABOUT THE SONG "UMQOMBOTHI"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umqombothi_(song)
"Umqombothi" ("African Beer"; Xhosa pronunciation: [um̩k͡ǃomboːtʰi]) is a song famously performed by South African singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka. It was composed by Sello "Chicco" Twala and Attie van Wyk.

Umqombothi, in Xhosa, is a beer commonly found in South Africa made from maize, maize malt, sorghum malt, yeast and water.

Hotel Rwanda featured "Umqombothi" in the beginning of the film.

"Umqombothi"
Single by Yvonne Chaka Chaka
from the album Thank you Mr. DJ
Released 1988
Format Cassette, CD single
Recorded 1988
Writer(s) Sello "Chicco" Twala and Attie van Wyk"
-snip-
The South African song "Umqombothi" is in English and Xhosa languages.

****
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Chaka_Chaka
"Yvonne Chaka Chaka (born Yvonne Machaka in 1965) is an internationally recognised and highly respected South African singer, songwriter, entrepreneur, humanitarian and teacher. Dubbed the "Princess of Africa" (a name she received after a 1990 tour), Chaka Chaka has been at the forefront of South African popular music for 27 years and has been popular in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Gabon, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.[3] Songs like "I'm Burning Up", "Thank You Mister DJ", "I Cry for Freedom", "Makoti", "Motherland" and the ever-popular "Umqombothi" ("African Beer") ensured Yvonne's stardom. The song "Umqombothi" was featured in the opening scene of the 2004 movie Hotel Rwanda.

As a young performer Yvonne was the first Black child[4] to appear on South African television in 1981. Since then, she has shared the stage with persons such as Bono, Angelique Kidjo, Annie Lennox, Youssou N’Dour, the classic rock band Queen and South Africans Johnny Clegg, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, to name a few...

Yvonne is a champion for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the United Nations MDG Envoy for Africa, and the Goodwill Ambassador for the Roll Back Malaria Partnership. She was chosen by Nelson Mandela as the first ambassador for his children's fund, and has also established her own charity, the Princess of Africa Foundation, using the name first given to her in Uganda. The Princess of Africa Foundation is a partner of the ACTION global health advocacy partnership."...

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SHOWCASE VIDEO: Yvonne Chaka Chaka - Umqombothi - Original copy off Master Tape - High Quality (HQ) SD



1ought2, Published on Jun 1, 2012

This was Yvonnes big hit that really introduced her to Africa. Bigger than 'I'm In Love With A DJ' and went viral Afica wide. The video was shot in October 1986 in varios locations in Johannesburg and out at Heia Safari Ranch near Muldersdrift. Filmed on 16mm Arri. DOP Roy MacGregor, styled by Leigh vd Merwe, produced by Pierre Hinch for S&H Films. Record co is Dephon, Phil Hollis. The video was Written, edited and directed by a young Makhlari. The aim was to put sneak in some social commentary desguised as celebration. It was the apartheid era afterall and little dissent could be shown on TV.

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LYRICS: UMQOMBOTHI
(composed by Sello "Chicco" Twala and Attie van Wyk)

Verse
I work hard every day
To make my beer
(Umqombothi)
Wake up early every morning
To please my people with African beer
(Umqombothi)
I make sure the fire burns
To make my beer
(Umqombothi)
My special beer Umqombothi
(Umqombothi)
Is African beer

Chorus
We MaDlamini (Everybody)
Uph'umqombothi (Come and drink my)
We MaDlamini (magic beer)
Uph'umqombothi

Verse
I work hard to make them happy
Every weekend (Umqombothi)
Makes them party to the rhythm
Makes them dance, this magic beer (Umqobothi)
I wanna make you happy (Umqobothi)
I wanna make you smile (Umqobothi)
I wanna make you dance (Umqobothi), dance
I'll make sure there's a party
Where they drink my special beer
Umqombothi is magic beer
Umqombothi is African beer

Chorus 3x
We MaDlamini (Everybody)
Uph'umqombothi (nawu)
We MaDlamini Uph'umqombothi (nawu madoda)
Wozani ka MaDlamini
Wozani ngithi wozani
Wozani ka MaDlamini
Come on I wanna make you happy
I wanna make you smile lets boogie together
Umqombothi (Umqombothi)
I work hard every day
To please my people with African beer

posted by Ganiu Aladeola, 2016 in the discussion thread for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z07zZeeRZ-o [the video that is embedded in this post]

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COMMENTS ABOUT THE SOCIAL ACTIVISM MEANINGS OF THE SONG "UMQOMBOTHI"
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z07zZeeRZ-o

kigozi muhammad, 2016
"for those who didn't this was a historical song. i don't know some of the non-English words they are saying but all i know it was a song of defiance by Africans from buying white industrialized liquor. so most Africans viced means to make local beer . so that's the foundation of this beautiful song

Reply
Mrsuperafrosamurai, 2016
"+kigozi muhammad Umqombothi is a traditional beer, also used after the circumcision ritual to become a man. isiXhosa and amaZulu (maybe all Ndebele) drink it. It was being made a long long time before Europeans came to Africa."

**
lubo yot, 2016
"This song encapsulates African way of life . It has deep meanings beyond what you see on the surface."

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COMMENTS FROM AFRICANS ABOUT THEIR MEMORIES OF YVONNE CHAKA CHAKA'S SONG "UMQOMBOTHI"
These comments from the discussion thread of this showcased video are only a sample of the comments from people throughout Africa about their memories of Yvonne Chaka Chaka's song "Umqombothi". A few other comments besides Africans also recalled their childhood memories of this song. There are also other comments in that discussion thread, including comments about Yvonne Chaka Chaka's musical career and her positive social activism roles.

These selected comments are presented in chronological order with the oldest comments given first. Numbers have been assigned to these comments for referencing purposes only.

2013
1. jes yoncy
"i luv ds song so mch...it remnds me of my childhood back in TANZANIA...LUV U YVONNE"

**
2. TheIwittness
"Like if you're Kenyan and always sang this as "Yesu Mkobozi" as a kid! I did!!!!"
-snip-
"Yesu Mkobozi" is Swahili for "Jesus Deliver" - the implication is that the Kenyan commenter misunderstood the words of this song.

**
3. Jazzy Jay
"Omgg my family play this songs at every celebrations.. Love it #liberian"

****
2015
4. badex Inc
"This song was huge in Nigeria! i remember growing up to this. Nostalgia brought me to this page. yvonne chaka chaka is an adorable woman with a great voice!"

****
2016
5. David Kialain, Jr.
"This is the jam of the 80's. I grew up in listening to this tune in Liberia on all the radio stations back then."

**
6. Herve-greg Kabonte
"I'm from DR Congo; this song remember me my childhood.
Even if we were not able to understand the language, the music was so nice that we liked it too much.
Thanks for posting that!"

**
Reply
7. Blanchard Mwanza
"+Herve-greg Kabonte Wow I'm also from DR congo I also didn't know the language but we danced to it as kids"

**
Reply
8. Josiane Mudahemuka
"I'm from Burundi and I feel the same way as you.I was like 5 or 6 when they used to play it and everyone who was named Yvonne would call herself Chaka Chaka...thenn she came to Burundi for a concert late 2000's.I knew most of her songs.She is amazing.Someone removed Makoti from Youtube and I'm not happy about it.I loved the song and now that I can understand it I love it more."

**
Reply
9. Azam Jimma
"I'm from Oromia, Ethiopia have same like you guys ..wasn't understood but love it like crazy"

**
10. Sherbet_Bomb
"Australian born but I'm of Zimbabwean descent from my mothers side. I used to hear this song alot as a kid. Thought I don't drink, I find this song delightful."

**
11. Wendy Lovejoy
"This reminds me of growing up in South Africa and how all the relatives and friends came over for Zulu beer and fun. The good old days!."...

**
12. Mamadu Sall
"Thank you! I like this son I remember when I was 7 years old in Sierra Leone, this son[g] was popular everywhere you pass he's playing. Welcome south Africa ©®¢$@&"

**
13. moy topo
"i'm from Ethiopia; this song remember me my childhood when i was in Kenya.
Even though if i was not able to understand the language, the music was so nice that we liked it too much."

**
14. Corona Cermak
"God, this is still soooooo good song. I will forever listen to it. In Tanzania street I danced this song anywhere I heard it when I was a kid. And today it still makes me smile, jump and dance with so much love. Thanks for posting it. Soo Much love"

**
15. accraboi1
"ow. I remember hearing this song in Ghana as kid back in the 90's wow. I finally find it."

**
16. Jabulani Dube
"Danced to this song for decades, with not even an idea of what the words mean! That was when Zimbabwe was still a country!"

**
17. brice seho
"ooooooohhhhh!!!!!!! my childhood in Cotonou/Benin/west africa"

**
Reply
18. Zainabu Shoko
"my childhood too - Kenya! she was all over Africa! love it..."

**
Reply
19. Sandra Godwin, 2017
"Same thing in tanzania"

**
20. Miriam Sang
"Childhood memories of us in kenya watching and re-watching her d.v.d...those were the days...just LIT!"
-snip-
"Lit" here is an African American originated vernacular term meaning something "hot" i.e. great.

**
21. amor Oiradh
"I`m from Mozambique, i love this song, this song rebember me my childhood!!!!"

**
22. Jennifer Mbah
"I'm from Cameroon and I used to love this song when i was younger. I'm so happy I found it !!"

****
2017
23. Tchekouille N.E.A
"I'm Cameroonian, i live in France but this song it's all my childhood...
Yvonne Chaka Chaka!!!"

**
24. Mawolo Mulbah
"This song is a true spirit of Africa as a whole. Each time I listen to it it reminds me about my childhood days growing up in Liberia. I Looovveee iiiittttt!👌"

**
25. Ugonna Etoh
"I can"t forget those olden days my grand father always plays this lovely song with his gramma fone along side his kegs of palm wine.. ww beautiful song from Yvonne...."

**
26. Kingfloss jiggles
"From Nigeria, born in 1994 but this song was still a staple of My childhood.
One love brothers and sisters, no matter what language and culture, we are all one.
Viva Africa"

**
27. Prince Wako
"March.2017 still watching. Im Norwegian of African decency (East Africa Uganda). Old African Music is great. I love love love this Song #ChildhoodMemories. It gives me peace of mind thinking of the good times with family. Yvonne Chaka Chaka was really a great musician"

**
28. Michelle Udo
"i would always listen to this when i was little and i thought it said "everybody come and see my african queen" and thats what i looked up because i didn't know who made the song. now i know why my mom was always laughing when we would sing this."

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases a variant form of the United States military cadence "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown". This example is credited to Master Sergeant McCants United States Marine Corps (USMC) Retired. MSgt McCants is also known on YouTube as "TheScribe114".

This post showcases a YouTube sound file of this United States Marine Corp cadence that includes the cadence's lyrics in its summary. This post also includes selected comments from this sound file's discussion thread

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, and motivational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the original composer/s of the "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown" cadence and thanks to Master Sergeant McCants for this version of that cadence.

Thanks to all those who have honorably served and who are honorably serving in the United States Marine Corps and in other branches of the United States military.

****
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/05/mamma-told-johnny-not-to-go-downtown.html for a pancocojams post that showcases a text (word only) example and a video of the "standard" lyrics for the Marine Corps' cadence "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown".

A pancocojams post that showcases several examples of the related cadence "Mama Told Sally Not To Go Downtown" will be published ASAP and its link will be added to this post. My guess is that that cadence began as a variant form of "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown".

Note that United States military cadences are also known as "jodies". Most of the examples of "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown" that I've read online are from the US Marine Corps. I've also read an example of this cadence from the US Army.

Click the "military cadences" tag below for additional examples of United States military cadences.

Note that some military cadences include sexual references and curse words (profanity). As per the policy of this blog- I don't fully spell out profanity (except the words "damn" and "damned").

****
SHOWCASE VIDEO & LYRICS - Marine Corps running cadence with lyrics



Danny Brandt, Published on Dec 14, 2013
-snip-
**Lyrics below** (might be spelled wrong, or interpreted wrong. I apologize if it is). Originally done by TheScribe114 on YouTube, go check him out

lo right, a lo righty a lay o
lo right, a lefty righty a lo
lo right, a lo righty a lay o
lo right, a lefty righty a lay lo

Momma told Johnny not to go down town
Marine Corps recruiter was hanging around

Suzy told Johnny go serve your nation
take a cab down to the MEPS station

lo right, a lo righty a lay o
lo right, a lo righty a lay o

Momma told Johnny not to go down town
Marine Corps recruiter was hanging around

Suzy's in the bedroom, Jodie's at the window
Johnny's got his bags and he's ready to go

put Johnny on a greyhound bus
then there came the bends and thrusts

Drill Instructors trained him rough and hard
They taught him to fight, they taught him to march

lo right, a lo righty a lay o
lo right, a lo righty a lay o

Momma told Johnny not to go down town
Marine Corps recruiter was hanging around

it was short but long it seemed
Johnny had earned the title Marine

Johnny survived like all the rest
Johnny got popped on a urine analysis

Johnny thought he was one in a million
a urine sample made him a civilian

lo right, a lo righty a lay o
lo right, a lo righty a lay o

Momma Told Johnny not to go downtown
Marine Corps recruiter was hanging around...

I had a pig and his name was Sam
Sunday he was bacon, on Monday he was ham

Grinding my Ka-bar in the barn
While my donkey runs the farm

Got a steer and his name was Jake
Tuesday he was burgers on Wednesday he was steak

Grinding my ka-bar in the barn
while my donkey runs the farm

bare with me 'cause this may sound sick
Gotta strip out some baby chicks

Me and my donkey gonna take a little trip
The Colonel's in need of some Crispy strips

lo righty lo righty lo righty lo
lefty right a lo, here we go

Got two roosters named larry and Lee
One's going to Church's the other KFC

Grinding my ka-bar in the barn
While my donkey runs the farm

Got some lamb and a couple of sheep
Gotta have gyros and mutton ain't cheap

I still grind my ax in the barn
while my donkey runs the farm

lo righty lo righty lo righty lo
lefty righty lo, righty lo, righty lo

-snip-
Pancocojams Editor's Notes About This Cadence:
While I'm interested in the words of this cadence, I'm particularly interested in examining its structure, i.e. how this cadence is composed of changeable rhyming and near rhyming verses followed by a relatively fixed refrain that is sung after a series of those rhyming verses.

In this variant form of "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown" these rhyming verses are made up of two, three, four, or six separate couplets (two line rhyming or near rhyming verses) that are given together and sung before the cadence's relatively fixed refrain (lo righty = "left right").

As it was written in this YouTube sound file's summary, this cadence didn't include a space between each couplet. I reformatted these lyrics to add a space after each rhyming/near rhyming couplet so that they would be more clearly seen. This doesn't mean that there is any space between how these lines are sung/chanted.

It's important to note that many Black religious and non-religious vocal music compositions from the past through the present have a structure that consists of two line rhyming and near rhyming couplets. And, as is the case with a lot of Black music- and in particular Black folk music- the couplets that are found in this cadence don't have to have any connecting theme. Notice that some of these couplets don't necessarily have anything to do with being in the Marines.

****
SELECTED COMMENTS
These comments are from the discussion thread for the sound file that is given above. They are given in chronological order except for replies, with the oldest comment given first. I've added numbers for referencing purposes only.

2015
1. TheScribe114
"Well I'll be damned.......that's me!

Wrote this back in 1988 in Okinawa at 9th MTBN.

ENJOY!!! MSgt McCants USMC Ret."
-snip-
For the historical record, I'll note that the photograph that is given with TheScribe144's comment is of a Black man.

**
Reply
1. iXads Official
"Oorah, Master Sergeant. Oorah!"
-snip-
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oorah_(Marines)
"Oohrah is a battle cry common in the United States Marine Corps since the mid-20th century. The term means "charge." It is comparable to hooah in the US Army and the US Air Force, and hooyah in the US Navy and US Coast Guard. It is most commonly used to respond to a verbal greeting or as an expression of motivation."

**
2016
Reply
3. Michael Gibbs
"+TheScribe114 were you running when you did this or were you in a studio or something? dumb question?"

**
Reply
4. TheScribe114
"Studio, no one is going to follow us for 4-5 miles with a tape recorder."

**
Reply
5. Paul Tayag
"+TheScribe114 that's one hell of a cadence song, thanks for writing it and Semper Fidelis!"

**
Reply
6. James White
"+TheScribe114 Early Discharge QUITE Honorably in Dec. '87, so We most likely chewed a lot of the same dirt, way back then, but BROTHER, I AM F&&KIN* LOVING THIS. SEMPER FI, I will be, With Your Permission, learn and tweak this for My Runners. eight , wanting to be back in shape blue-collar Ass-kickers from way back when, half are USMC BROTHERS, the rest are all Veterans. Oath-Keepers All, we call Ourselves the Retreads. Ready to go . At the drop of a Cover. OOOHRAH !"
-snip-
*This word was fully spelled out in this comment.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semper_fidelis
"Semper fidelis is a Latin phrase that means "always faithful" or "always loyal". It is the motto of the United States Marine Corps usually shortened to Semper fi. It is also in use as a motto for towns, families, schools, and military units."...

**
Reply
7. MisterTofu
"+TheScribe114 Was the singer you? Or are you just the writer?"

**
Reply
8. TheScribe114
"BOTH"

**
Reply
9. shadowtailsthewarrior, 2017
"well sir, you did very well with this one. thank you for this cadence and your service"

**
Reply
[This comment was written in reply to a comment that criticized this CD for being fake because it was done in a studio. In particular, the person who wrote that critical comment took issue with the stomping sounds in the background of this tape.]

10. ocdarjar gm, 2016
...this is a Mst Srgt, the sounds in the back are from 4 Marines stomping their boots, it was made in Japan for a new cadence contest in 1985 ...
-snip-
*As per the policy of this blog, I deleted profanity from the beginning and the end of this comment.

"Mst Srgt" = Master Sergeant

**
shadowstranger100, 2016
11. "This is gonna be my jogging song. Keeps you motivated and takes your mind of fatigue.
Imma sing the cadence out loud i dont give a dam if im the only one jogging"

**
[The following sub-section of comments refer to the meanings of some of the lines in this cadence, particularly to the lines about farm animals and/or "popping on a urine analysis".]

12. Julian Hess
"Can you tell me master Sgt. what was the backround on why you chose to say the last part with the "I had a pig and his name was sam"? was that supposed to be about the marine on what he did after he was dishonorable discharge or was it random?

**
13. Zach Reaves
"im confused at the end about the kbar and barn part, can somone please explain the meaning behind it, also thank you for your service sir and lastly oorah, war on baby"

**
Reply
14. Reece Dignan
"Zach Reaves
Either he is referring to spending a bit of time with Pam and her Five sisters.
Or
He's referring to the USMC standard knife/bayonet and how he's grinding (sharpening it) and you see can see what he dose with it."
-snip-
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka-Bar
"Ka-Bar (trademarked as KA-BAR) is the contemporary popular name for the combat knife first adopted by the United States Marine Corps in November 1942 as the 1219C2 combat knife (later designated the USMC Mark 2 combat knife or Knife, Fighting Utility), and subsequently adopted by the United States Navy as the U.S. Navy utility knife, Mark 2."...
-snip-
It's highly likely that "ka-bar" in this military cadence (also) has a sexualized meaning.

**
15. Polaris F18
"Why did you say "the colonel is in need of some crispy strips"?"

**
Reply
16. Jovan Gorgievski
"It's from a joke A Rooster walks on a street and he saw whole chickens being grilled. And he said wow girls you are striped and getting some ten in solarium."
-snip-
The word "grilled" here means "being cooked on a grill".

The word "ten" is probably a typo for "tan".

Notice that "Colonel" is both a military rank and a referent for "Colonel Sanders", the fictional character who is associated with the national American [and international] fast food chain "KFC" (Kentucky Fried Chicken).

**.
Reply
17. Kryptic Panda
"I believe that by the line "I had a pig and his name was Sam" and the follow up line showing how the Marines themselves can be versatile. Of course by "grinding my Ka-Bar in the barn", he is sharpening his Ka-Bar, which is the traditional USMC Combat Knife. By "while my donkey runs the farm" he is referring to those POGs whom run the Marine Corps, but with the grunts doing the majority of it. Same thing when he mentions the Steer (a castrated cow) and the line afterwards, meaning the Marines can practically be anywhere at a moments notice. Again, with the mention of the Ka-Bar, he implies that he is going to "ship out" some more Marines from boot camp, to bring the Colonel back some 'chicken' (enemies). Finally, with the roosters I presume he means that one will pass, and another will fail. With the lamb and the sheep part he could possibly be talking about the goat/sheep farmers in the middle east"
-snip-
This commenter and several others provided literal explanations for some of the "farm" verses in this post. However, I believe that these verses aren't necessarily intended to be taken literally or the words may have a literal meaning or more than one literal meaning and, simultaneously, sexual meaning/s. For instance, a reference to a rooster in a military cadence is likely to be a coded referent to a vernacular term for a male's body part.

**
18. John Valenti
"Johnny got popped on a urine analysis
Johnny thought he was one in a million
can someone explain this part"

**
Reply
19. Noah
"In any branch of the Military (International) you get tested for drugs, and he thought he wouldn't get found after he had drugs."

**
Reply
20. Ricochet Gaming
"Marijuana."

**
Reply
21. Hero Clan
"He failed his drug test and only a few are built to be Marines hence the "one in a million""

**
Reply
22. Scali Bread
"Before bootcamp you take a drug test and they don't tell you your results until the end of bootcamp so if you tested positive for any drugs they will discharge you at the end of bootcamp, so it would be basically 13 weeks of hell for nothing..."

**
Reply
23. Greg Andris
"They'll kick you out before any training occurs, they piss test everyone the first 2 days of boot camp and results are within days. They're not gonna waste time and money and knowledge on a drug pop. The one and only place its acceptable to pop on a piss test is at the recruiting station before going into MEPS or poole training."

**
Reply
24. Colonel Teehee, 2017
"Moral of the story, don't do drugs..."

**
25. BIlly the SMall Bong thorton from india
"first time we ran this in basic. i started laughing so damn hard when the instructor screamed "johnny got popped on a urine test" then we had to all stop while still laughing did 100 push ups. yeah for the next 48 hours i was forced to march while singing that till i stopped laughing at the part. still one of the best times i had while in the corp."
-snip-
I wonder whether the word "popped" in "popped a urine analysis" (drug test) has anything to do with the term "pop quiz", meaning a quiz that a teacher "pops" (surprises) her or his students with (without any forewarning.
snip-
This is the end of that sub-section of these selected comments.

**
26. 2027850
"Far cry from the cadences my platoon chanted They are historical considering the times, and NOT politically correct:...
-snip-
This comment concluded with a bawdy (dirty) cadence example.

****
2017
27. Seth de Jesus
"Best variation of momma told johnny not to go downtown I've ever heard, hands down."

**
[This next comment is written in response to a commenter who wrote that singing this cadence helped him take his mind off of the pain of running and helped him run farther than he thought he could.]

**
28. Thomas Kerekes
"shadowstranger100 you are absolutely correct. I was never able to do 2 and a half miles without stopping and yesterday I didnt even realize but I did close to 3 miles without stopping because of this cadence. This is the best cadence from all the branches so far"

**
Reply
29. James B
"shadowstranger100 actually.....ANY cadence can do it.....but TY so much for choosing a USMC cadence.
That's the psychology of cadence's....you have nailed it....they take your mind off the fatigue & pain"

**
Reply
30. David L
"James B Yes, same as the songs slaves sang in the fields. The rhythmic sound not only keeps you in rhythm, regulates breathing and keeps your mind of the pain. Seeing how the first cadence was by a black soldier just trying to lift the soldiers spirits as they were on a long march. The leaders saw how everyone went from dragging to snapping their step and keeping time. So the Duckworth Chant was born and incorporated into every branches marches. With slight variations. Thank you Pvt. Duckworth for your contribution."

**
Reply
31. Jim Porter
"+David L, actually between the slaves in the fields and the black soldiers, there were the black railroad workers who maintained, straightened, and laid replacement track. Because the work was brutal even for strong men, the bosses learned, as their field boss counterparts before them, that they could keep the work going better by the use of cadence songs. The boss would sing, then use words like OOh, AHH. On the catch words Ooh, Ahh, the workers would make the necessary moves, usually straightening the tracks. So it was something like, "Sally, sally, don't you know? I can make your belly grow. Ooh! Ahh1." It just made for a break in the monotony of the work, and a little humor to keep the track workers' morale going."

**
Reply
32. deadhead686
"They were called gandy dancers, they had to be in rythem to lay the railroad tracks properly."

**
33. the sniper on the hill
"TheScribe114 I found u in a di cadence calling contest in San Diego"

**
34. Linda Olivarez
"the song may be old but is still in the marine cadence songs"
-snip-
I don't know if this comment refers to the "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown" cadence in general, or to this specific version of that cadence.

**
35. Peter Asterino
"still sounds good 64 yrs after I left PI. Jarhead 1953"
-snip-
"Jarhead" is an acceptable colloquial referent for a Marine.

**
36. American Hunter
"TheScribe114 I am a Staff Sergeant in the Army getting ready to be a Sergeant First Class, great cadence. Motivating. If you do not mind I am going to adopt it for my soldiers. Of course with changes"

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases various text (word only) and YouTube sound files of the United States military cadence "Mama Told Sally Not To Go Downtown" and

It's my guess that these cadences are variant forms of the military cadence "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown."

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/05/mamma-told-johnny-not-to-go-downtown.html for a pancocojams post that showcases a text (word only) example and a video of the "standard" lyrics for the Marine Corps' cadence "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown".

Also, click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/msgt-mccants-usmc-ret-version-of.html for information and comments about as well as a text example and sound file of a variant form of "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown" that was written and recorded by Master Sergeant McCants, United States Marine Corps, retired.

****
The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural purposes., and motivational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the original composer/s of the "Mama Told Sally Not To Go Downtown" and thanks also to all those who are featured in these sound files.

Thanks to all those who have honorably served and who are honorably serving in the United States Marine Corps and in other branches of the United States military.

****
Note that United States military cadences are also known as "jodies". Most of the examples of "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown" that I've read online are from the US Marine Corps. I've also read an example of this cadence from the US Army.

Click the "military cadences" tag below for additional examples of United States military cadences.

Please add to this collection by sharing the examples you know in the comment section. Remember, this is a family friendly cultural blog. Therefore, as per the policies of this blog, I don't accept comments/examples that include profanity fully spelled out or comments/examples that contain explicit sexual content.

Also, note that some military cadences include sexual references and curse words (profanity). As per the policy of this blog- I don't fully spell out profanity (except the words "damn" and "damned").

****
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE MILITARY CADENCE "MAMA TOLD SALLY NOT TO GO DOWNTOWN"
The United States military cadence ("jody") "Mama Told Sally Not To Go Downtown" is running cadence. This cadence is probably a variant form of the United States military cadence "Mama Told Johnny Not to Go Downtown."

Both "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown" and "Mama Told Sally Not To Go Downtown" begin with the same words, except for the difference in the gender name.

Johnny's mother tells him not to go downtown because the (insert the name of the military branch) recruiter is in town. He disobeys his mother, joins that military branch, and becomes a member of that armed service. At the end of the cadence Johnny's mother is told that he died with honor, saving other members who he fought along side of.

Sally's mother also tells her not to go downtown because there are too many members of [insert the name of that specific military branch]. Sally goes downtown anyway and connects up with at least one member of that armed service. Sally returns home, but finds out she is pregnant. This cadence often ends with Sally giving birth to a baby who comes out "swingin a chain" or "swingin on a chain". But other versions of this cadence end with the chanters listing accolades to their particular military branch.

To date, I've found examples of "Mama Told Sally Not To Go Downtown" that are attributed to these United States military branches (given in alphabetical order) - United States Air Force, United States Army, and United States Marines.

The YouTube recordings that I've heard of "Mama Told Sally Not To Go Downtown" sound very similar to me to the song "Hambone" ("Hambone Hambone, where you been?"*. The tempo is usually moderate, and the lyrics are relatively consistent.

*In contrast, I think that the recordings that I've heard of the standard version of "Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown" sound somewhat like a slower version of the chorus of another folk song- "Old Dan Tucker".

****
SOME TEXT EXAMPLES OF THE MILITARY CADENCE "MAMA TOLD SALLY NOT TO GO DOWNTOWN"
These examples are given in no particular order. Numbers are assigned for referencing purposes only.
These examples were retrieved on May 29, 2017. The titles are given in capital letters to distinguish them from the example's text.

Note: Cadences are call & response compositions. The group response by repeating the exact same thing that the "caller" says.

Disclaimer: This is not meant to be a comprehensive listing of examples of this cadence.

Text Example #1:
From https://www.vetfriends.com/cadences/

DOWN TOWN CADENCE
Mama told sally not to go downtown,
Bunch of Airman hanging around.
Sally didnt listen and she went anyway,
Didnt come home till the very next day.
2 weeks later and she was doing well,
3 months later and she began to swell.
9 months later and out it came,
Bald headed airman swinging from a chain."

****
Text Example #2
From http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/cadence/running_cadence/sally.shtml

SALLY

Created by: SGT LARRY HOWARD

MAMMA TOLD SALLY NOT TO GO DOWN TOWN,
THEIR WERE TO MANY(YOUR PLT.OR COMPANY NAME)HANGIN AROUND,
SALLY PAID HER MIND* AND WENT ANYWAY,
DIDN'T COME HOME TILL THE VERY NEXT DAY,
3 MONTHS LATER ALL WAS WELL,
6 MONTHS LATER SHE BEGAN TO SWELL,
9 MONTHS LATER OUT IT CAME,
A BALD HEADED(CALL A SOLDIER'S NAME,I.E SGT HOWARD)SWINGIN A CHAIN,
HE WAS HARDCORE,
LEAN AND MEAN,
SLIM AND TRIM,
ROUGH AND TOUGH,
A FIGHTIN MACHINE.
-snip-
*My guess is that the word "no" is missing from this line, and that line should read "Sally paid her no mind” [i.e. she didn’t listen to her]

****
Text Example #3, #4, and #5 (partial example)
From http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/sally-cadence-t853.html

March 5th, 2004
dragon_master_gunner

Text Example #3 - SALLY CADENCE
info (my personal favorite version):

Mamma told Sally not to go Downtown;
Too many Tanker's hangin' around;
Sally got the a** and she went anyway;
Wore a little skirt, and she had to play;
Three months later, all is well;
Six months later she began to swell;
Nine months later, out it came:
A mad-dog-baby-tanker swingin' a chain!

**
Text Example #4

September 21st, 2004
03USMC

Oh come on now ya know no tread head got Sally.

SALLY CADENCE

Momma told Sally
Not to go down town.

To many Jarheads
hangin around.

That little girl
she disobeyed.

She went out
and got herself laid.

3 months later
all is well.

6 months later
beginin to swell.


That little girl
she disobeyed.

She went out
and got herself laid.

3 months later
all is well.

6 months later
beginin to swell.

9 months later
out it came.

A little baby Jarhead
swingin a chain.

singin

Skiborne Trooper
Paratrooper
Jungle Fighter
Scuba diver
Life of Danger
Recon Jarhead

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Text Example #5
October 1st, 2004
kwinter74

"So many versions! lol.

I learned it like this:

9 months later
What a beautiful sight.

A little baby Ranger
ready to fight."
-snip-
definition of "jarhead"
From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jarhead
"A member of the United States Marine Corps. When used by civilians it could be considered derogatory, but it is used often among Marines.

The term originates from the "high and tight" haircut that many Marines have, which makes their head look like a jar. It did NOT originate from their uniform or cover.
"Oorah jarhead, semper fi!"
#marine#jar head#usmc#marines#marine corps
by Jay November 04, 2005

**
definition of "treadhead" (in this cadence)
From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=treadhead
[This is one of several different definitions of that term on that page]
"A person who is fond of or has a fascination with armored fighting vehicles.
Joe went crazy at the Imperial armor museum when he saw the German tanks. He's such a treadhead.
#tankhead#militaria#hoplophobe#tredhed#tread-head
by jmt_tx May 14, 2009

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Text Example #6
From https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fsX3lHqBHPIJ:www.armyparatrooper.org/dropzone/showthread.php/3823-Favorite-Cadence/page2+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Favorite Cadences, page 2
02-24-2009,
Stryker15-31
Originally Posted by RedFalcon

MOMMA TOLD SALLY

Momma told Sally not to go downtown
Too many Paratroopers hangin' around
Sally got the ass and she went anyway
Wearing stilleto heels and a neglige

Three months later, all was well
Six months later she began to swell
Nine months later - out it came
It was a little pararooper just a'swingin' a chain.
-snip-
No title was given for this example. I therefore used the first three words of the first line as the title.

****
Text Example #7
From http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/cadence/running_cadence/momma-told-sally.shtml
Army Study Guide

MOMMA TOLD SALLY

Created by: rick weaver

Momma told told Sally not to go downtown,
Too many Crewchiefs hangin' around.
Sally got the ass and she went anyway,
She didn't come home till late the next day.

Three months later, all was well,
Six months later, she began to swell,
Nine months later, out it came,
It was a bald headed Crewchief swingin' a chain.

Singin', "I'm Hardcore"
Motivated.

Dedicated.

Combat.

Ready.

Rollin'.

Steady.

We got the right, the right to rock steady,
We got to the right to roll when we're ready.
But when the time comes I got to be ready,
Willin and able to rock steady.
-snip-
The phrase "rock steady" shows up in some other military cadences. That phrase is probably borrowed from either Aretha Franklin's 1972 R&B record, or The Whispers' 1987 R&B record and not its Jamaican usage, where "Rock Steady" was a music genre (around 1966) that came after Ska and came before Reggae.)

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SHOWCASE EXAMPLES (Sound files)
Example #1: Air Force Cadence - Mama told Sally not to go downtown



Spencer Koerner Published on Aug 22, 2012

Another of my favorite USAF running cadences
-snip-
Here's my transcription of this sound file.

For all the cadence transcriptions on this page, the group repeats the exact same words that the "caller" says, the exact same way he says them.

Momma told Sally not to go downtown
She said too many Air men hangin' around
Sally didn't listen so she went anyway
Didn't come home till the very next day

Three months later, all was well
Four months later she began to swell
Nine months later and out it came
A bald little Air man swingin' on a chain.

Le righty layo
Lo righty layo
Le righty layo
Cruisin all the time.

That tune ends and the leader/group chants
Air Force!
Air Force!
Air Force!
Number One!
Second to none!
Standin tall!
Lookin good
We oughta be
Hollywood.
Hollywood.
-snip-
"Lookin good/Oughta be/Hollywood" are floating lyrics that I've found online (as of this date) in one other cadence – a version of “Saw An Old Lady Walkin Down The Street". "Outghta be Hollywood" = [I] ought be [in] Hollywood. "Hollywood" (California) is the motion picture capital of the United States. This self-boasting statement means that the man believes that he's so handsome that he should be a Hollywood actor (star).
.
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Example #2: Mama Told Sally Not To Go Downtown (Air Force)



Hard Corp Cadences Published on Aug 26, 2015
-snip-
These lyrics are the same as those given in Example #1 except that this version uses the line "Two weeks later and all was well" instead of "three months later and all was well".

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Example #3: Mama Told Sally Not to Go Downtown



The U.S Army Special Forces - Topic, Published on Sep 24, 2016

Momma told Sally not to go downtown
Too many Paratroopers hangin' around
Sally went down anyway
All she wore was a neglige

Three months later she began to swell
Six months later you could really tell
Nine months later - out it came
A little pararooper swingin' a chain.

Four months later she began to swell
Nine months later and out it came
A bald little Air man swingin' on a chain.

*****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases various text (word only) examples and YouTube sound files of the United States military cadence "Seen An Old Lady Walkin Down The Street" (or similar titles).

The examples of this military cadence that I have found online are from the following United State military branches (given in alphabetical order) - the Air Force, the Army, and the Marines.

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The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, and motivational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the original composer/s of this cadence and thanks to all those quoted in this post and all those who are featured in these sound files.

Thanks also to all those who have honorably served and who are honorably serving in the United States Marine Corps and in other branches of the United States military.

Please add to this collection by sharing the examples you know in the comment section. Remember, this is a family friendly cultural blog. Therefore, as per the policies of this blog, I don't accept comments/examples that include profanity fully spelled out or comments/examples that contain explicit sexual content.

Also, note that some military cadences include sexual references and curse words (profanity). As per the policy of this blog- I use amended spelling for curse words or indicated that "profanity is deleted".

Click the "military cadences" tag below for additional examples of United States military cadences.

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S COMMENTS
The United States military cadences that I've read or heard via YouTube use an "echo" call & response pattern. This call & response pattern is often found in African and African Diaspora vocal music. By "echo" call & response, I mean that the group (responders) repeat every line that the leader (caller) sings in exactly the same way that he (or she) sings those lines.

Some call & response cadences are composed of changeable rhyming and near rhyming couplets (two line rhyming or near rhyming verses) and a relatively fixed refrain (such as "lo right layo" ("left right left). The refrain may be sung at the beginning of the cadence, (and/or) at the end of the cadence, (and/or) after each rhyming or near rhyming couplet, or after a certain number of rhyming/or near rhyming couplets. But some call & response cadences have no fixed refrain, and only consists of the group exactly repeating each line that caller (leader) sings.

The examples of the "Seen [or "Saw"} An Old Lady Walkin Down The Street" that I have read or heard on YouTube have a series of rhyming or near rhyming couplets that constitute "verses". But these examples don't have any responding refrain (such as "Lo right layo").

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TEXT (WORDS ONLY) EXAMPLES OF "SEEN AN OLD LADY WALKIN' DOWN THE STREET
These examples are given in no particular order. Numbers are assigned for referencing purposes only.

I reformatted the lyrics in each of these examples to add a space after each rhyming/near rhyming couplet so that they would be more clearly seen. This doesn't mean that there is any space between how these lines are sung/chanted.

Text Example #1:
From http://www.army-cadence.com/saw-an-old-lady/

Old Lady (Marine Running Cadence)

I saw an old lady walkin’ down the street.
She had a chute on her back, and jump boots on her feet.

I said, “Hey, Old Lady, where you goin’ to?”
She said, “I’m goin’ to the Army Airborne School.”

I said, “Hey, Old Lady, I think you’re too old;
You’d better leave that stuff to the brave and the bold.”

She said, “Listen, Sonny, I’m talking to you;
I’m an instructor at the Airborne School.”


I saw the same old lady walkin’ down the street.
She had a pack on her back, jungle boots on her feet.

I said, “Hey, Old Lady, where you goin’ to?”
She said, “I’m goin’ to Marine Corps Recon School.”

I said, “Hey, Old Lady, I think you’re too old;
You’d better leave that stuff to the brave and the bold.”

She said, “Listen, Sonny, I’m talking to you;
I’m an instructor at the Recon School.”


I saw the old lady walkin’ down the street.
She had a tank on her back, and fins on her feet.

I said, “Hey, Old Lady, where you goin’ to?”
She said, “I’m goin to the Navy Diving School.”

I said, “Hey, Old Lady, I think you’re too old;
You’d better leave that stuff to the brave and the bold.”

She said, “Listen, Sonny, I’m talking to you;
I’m an instructor at the Diving School.”

I turned to leave, and she spun me around;
She kicked me in the head, and threw me to the ground.

I looked up through my tears, and with a voice full of fear,
I begged, “Please, Old Lady, don’t kill me right here.”

She said, “Listen, Sonny, don’t you mess with me;
I’m Airborne, Recon, and UDT!”

****
Text Example #2: SAW AN OLD LADY [Army]
From http://www.radford.edu/content/chbs/home/rotc/cadets/creeds-cadences.html

Saw an old lady running down the street
Had a cute on her back, jump boots on her feet

Said, "Hey old lady where you goin' to?"
She said "US Army Airborne School"

"Whatcha gonno do when you get there?"
"Jump from a plane, float through the air"

I said "Hey old lady ain't you been told?
Airborne School's for the young and the bold"

She said "Hey young punk who you talkin' to?
I'm an instructor at the Airborne School"


Saw an old lady marching down the road
Had a knife in her hand and a 90lb load

Said, "Hey old lady where you goin' to?"
She said "US Army Ranger School"

"Whatcha gonna do when you get there?"
"Jump and swim and kill without care"

I said "Hey old lady ain't you been told?
Ranger School's for the young and the bold"

She said "Hey young punk who you talkin' to?
I'm an instructor at the Ranger School"

Saw on old lady running down the track
Had fins on her feet and a tank on her back

Said, "Hey old lady where you goin' to?"
She said "US Army scuba School"

"Whatcha gonno do when you get there?"
"Swim under water and never breathe air"

I said, "Hey old lady ain't you been told?
Scuba School's for the young and the bold"

She said "Hey young punk who you talkin' to?
I'm an instructor at the Scuba School"

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Text Example #3: Seen An Old Lady
From http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/cadence/running_cadence/seen-an-old-lady.shtml
Army Study Guide
Created by: PFC Deason

I Seen an old lady walkin down the street
She had a ruck on her back, jump boots on her feet.

I said hey old lady where you goin to
She said US Army Airborne school

I said hey old lady dont you think you're too old
You better leave that jumpin to the young and the bold

She said hey young punk who you talkin to
I'm a Jumpmaster from Airborne school.


Then I seen an old lady walkin down the street
She had ropes in her hand, jump boots on her feet.

I said hey old lady where you goin to
She sais US Army Air Assault school

I said hey old lady dont you think you're too old
You better leave that slidin to the young and the bold

She said hey young punk who you talkin to
I'm an instructor from Air Assault school


Then I seen an old lady walkin down the street
She had a tank on her back, and fins on her feet

I said hey old lady where you goin to
She said US Army scuba school

I said hey old lady dont you think you're too old
You better leave that divin to the young and the bold

She said hey young punk who you talkin to
I'm an instructor from scuba school
-snip-
Several additional examples of this cadence are found below.

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SHOWCASE SOUND FILES (WITH TRANSCRIPTIONS & SELECTED COMMENTS)
Sound File Example #1: SEEN AN OLD LADY CADENCE [Army]

Seen An Old Lady Cadence (With Lyrics)



letseewhathappens101, Uploaded on Feb 13, 2010

I have gotten many requests from people to email them a cadence so I have added a download link enjoy and thanks for watching.

This is the transcription that is given in the summary. Repeat every line, except the words “I said” or “she said” words.

Seen an old lady running down the street da
Had a ruck on her back, jump boots on her feet
I said, "Old lady where you goin' to?"
She said "US Army Airborne School"

I said "Hey old lady ain't you been told?
Airborne School's for the young and the bold"
She said "Hey young punk who you talkin' to?
I'm an instructor at the Airborne School"
‘Cause I’m hard core
Lean and mean
Fit to fight
Rock
steady
Rollin
Ready
Seen an old lady walkin down the street da
She had a ruck on her back and jump boots on her feet.
I said, "Old lady where you goin' to?"
She said "US Army Ranger School."
I said “Hey old lady ain’t you been told?

The Ranger Schools for the young and the bold.”
She said "Hey young punk who you talkin' to?
I'm an instructor at the Ranger School"
‘Cause I’m hard core
Lean and mean
Fit to fight
Rock
steady
Rollin
Ready
Ready
Easy

Seen an old woman walkin down the street da
She had tanks on her back and fins on her feet
I said, "Old lady where you goin' to?"
She said "US Army Scuba School"
I said, "Hey old lady ain't you been told?
Scuba School's for the strong and the bold"
She said "Hey young punk who you talkin' to?
I'm an instructor at the Scuba School"
‘Cause I’m hard core
Lean and mean
Fit to fight
Rock
Steady
Rock
Steady
Rollin
Ready
‘Cause I’m hardcore
Lean and* mean
Fit to fight
Lookin good
Ought to be
Hollywood
- snip-
The phrase "rock steady" is also found in some versions of the military cadence “Mama Told Sally Not To Go Downtown” (and probably some other cadences). That phrase is probably lifted either from Aretha Franklin's 1972 R&B record with that title or The Whispers' 1987 R&B record with that title. I think it's unlikely that the phrase "rock steady" is from the Jamaican "Rock Steady" music genre. That music genre came around 1966 after Ska and and before Reggae.

-snip-
Here are selected comments from this sound file's discussion thread (Numbers assigned for referencing purposes only.)
1. love, 2011
"what cd is this from?"

**
Reply
2. letseewhathappens101, 2011
"@WhitneyDoll25 Its off a cadence CD i got while at Fort Knox called Modern Military Cadence."

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3.ConnahWeeden, 2013
"Why do you sing as you run? Wouldn't that stuff up your rythm?"

**
Reply
4. Brody Zimmerman, 2013
"It helps you stay motivated and "singing a cadence while running or marching helps soldiers keep their heads up, take deeper breathes and exhale more forcefully. This increases oxygen to the lungs and gives the body more energy."

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Reply
5. kiridoodle, 2016
"ConnahWeeden quite the contrary, running and singing helps keep a steady pace and helps us get farther in the run. For people who get too caught up and worry about the running part, cadence helps them take their minds off it and focus on something else. (I'm not in the Army but my JROTC Raider team sings cadence when we run)"

**
6. Bob Sergeant, 2013
"The second stanza is often sung thus:

Saw an old lady marching down the road
Had a knife in her hand and a 90 lb. load
Said, "Hey old lady, where you goin' to?"
She said, "US Army Ranger School"
Whatcha gonna do when you get there?
Jump, swim, and kill without a care
I said, "Hey old lady, ain't you been told?
Ranger School's for the brave and the bold."
She said, "Hey, now soldier, don't be a fool,
I'm an instructor at Ranger School!"

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Sound File Example #2: Saw An Old Lady Walkin' Down the Street (Air Force)



Hard Corp Cadences Published on Aug 26, 2015
-snip-
Here is my transcription of this cadence (with the group repeating each line that is given below)

Saw an old woman walkin down the street
She had a pack on her back and boots on her feet
I said, "Old lady where you goin' to?"
She said "US Air Force to the rescue"
I said, "Ah ha”
“Ah ha”
Ah ha
Ah ha

I said “Hey old lady don’t you think you’re too old?”
You better leave that stuff to the young and the bold.”
She said Hey air man who you talkin to
She said I’m an instructor at per rescues
She said Ah ha
Ah ha
Ah ha
Ah ha

I saw an old man walkin down the street
He had tanks on his back and fins on his feet
I said “Hey old man where you going to
He said US Air Force scuba school
He said Ah ha
Ah ha
Ah ha
Ah ha
Ah ha
Ah ha
Ah ha

Hey old man don’t you think you’re too old
You better leave that stuff to the young and the bold.”
He said Hey air man who you talkin to
He said I’m an instructor at Scuba school
He said Ah ha
Ah ha
Ah ha
Ah ha
-snip-
Here are selected comments from this sound file's discussion thread (Numbers assigned for referencing purposes only.)
1. rtscaptain, 2013
This is a running cadence for those asking. Hence sung at a double time pace.

**
2. Vincent Palacios, 2016
"Is this a running cadence or walking, im pretty sure its running but im not completely sure, also what about the drive on cadence"

**
Reply
3. Isaac Mabry, 2016
"(Double time)Running cadence"

**
Reply
4. Hunter Hediger, 2016
"can be both, speed up for running, slow for marching.
drive on is marching"

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5. Theseus9, 2017
"In the entire time of 3 years in the Marine Corps infantry (3rd Bn. 8th Mar) I never heard this one,....then I went to 3rd Recon, and we didn't do cadence...we just did ruck runs silent."

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Reply
6. Don, 2017
"So, would you say that in general, Recon depended less on motivational devices like cadence and depended more on sheer will and hard discipline? Please do elaborate, I'm curious as to what separates Recon from the rest, mentally."

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Reply
10. Theseus9, 2017
"+Don Well, I personally liked singing cadence when I was in the infantry, not necessarily did it motivate me, but it actually helps your breathing. Recon in a way is more individual, yes you have camaraderie and work in a team, but as for motivation it's a personal desire to be where you are and to get the mission done."

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Reply
11. Don, 2017
"+Theseus9 Interesting. Yes I've figured cadence could be useful for breathing and shouting while on the move in combat, that's why even as nonmilitary I sing them. They are pleasing as well. Thanks for the response, it is fascinating stuff. Seems almost as if Recon and other elite groups are so overpowered through sheer iron will that they need no outer motivation. Quite the role models you guys make."

**
12. CyberManiac, 2017
"Did lyrics just like this, just added in CCT (Special Operations Training) and left it AHHA!"

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