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S1576, T86-243
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45:30
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My name is Zora Neal Hurston. I was born in Eatonville, FLorida. I'm 35 years old. This song that I'm going to sing is a railroad song that I found on a railroad gang near Miami and was song to me by Max Ford.
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S1576, T86-243
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45:52
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That was in 1930.
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S1576, T86-243
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45:58
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I was collecting folk material for Columbia University as part of the Barnard College, Columbia University.
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S1576, T86-243
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46:07
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They call it Gonna see my long-haired babe and it's a railroad spiking song and the rhythm is kept with a spike and a hammer.
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S1576, T86-243
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46:23
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Yes, sir.
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S1576, T86-243
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48:04
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Let them hammers ring, boy.
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S1576, T86-243
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48:15
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Uh, the men face each other with hammers and they call on each other; they're breasted, they stand breast to breast and one comes down and the other one comes down.
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S1576, T86-243
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48:24
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Yes, one comes down [strike, strike]
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S1576, T86-243
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48:33
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The minute that one goes down, the other is on the upstroke and comes right down behind it.
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S1576, T86-243
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48:38
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They sing in line. It's a man who doesn't work at all. And he walks up and down and gives the rhythm for the people to work.
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S1576, T86-243
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48:47
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A whole crew of men singing this one time and the railroad has to pay the singing liner or else the men won't work.
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S1576, T86-243
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49:01
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Not all the time, because different ones have verses they want to put in themselves and so they jump in and after they start the song but the singing liner always starts it.
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S1576, T86-243
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49:19
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Well, they often do that and then after that they [distortion] get in there but they [distortion]
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S1576, T86-243
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49:38
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Uh, this song I got in Callahan, Florida, which is a railroad center in the northern part of Florida.
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S1576, T86-243
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49:49
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I got this in 1935. I don't remember the man's name who sung it to me but I got it at Callahan. It's a railroad camp.
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S1576, T86-243
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49:59
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This is not exactly a song. It's a chant for the men lining. You know a railroad rail weighs 900 pounds and the men have to take these lining bars and get it in shape to spike it down. And while they're doing that why they have a chant that, uh, and also some songs that they be used to, the rhythm to work it into place and then the boss hollers 'Bring 'em a hammer gang' and they start to spike it down. And this is a chant for lining the rail.
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S1576, T86-243
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50:56
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They call it a lining bar.
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S1576, T86-243
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51:02
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It's a 'hah'! Now you don't hear the lining bar because it's under the rail and they shove the rail with it.
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S1576, T86-243
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51:09
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No, it's under it. You see, it's just like on this. It's a crow bar.
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S1576, T86-243
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51:22
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Well, I've seen them put it between their legs this way and put it back and they get this, this splange under the rail, and then they 'heh, heh'. You know, like that.
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S1576, T86-243
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51:33
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Pulling it backwards, they're moving it backwards.
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S1576, T86-243
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51:38
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That's right. Yes.
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S1576, T86-243
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51:41
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And all the men, you know because it's always straining and they 'heh'.
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S1576, T86-243
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51:52
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Alright
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S1576, T86-243
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52:23
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I got 'That Old Black Gal' is a spiking song that I got down there in Miami and was song by Max Ford the singing liner on this construction crew.
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S1576, T86-243
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52:35
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Used for spiking down the rails.
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S1576, T86-243
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53:51
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This song they called 'Shove it Over' and it's the lining rhythm pretty generally distributed all over Florida. It was sung to me by Charlie Jones on a railroad construction camp in Lakeland, Florida.
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S1576, T86-243
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54:06
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Uh, I gathered that in '33, 1933.
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S1576, T86-243
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56:03
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56:03
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This is a lining rhythm.
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S1576, T86-243
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56:06
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56:12
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When they say Shacka-lacka-lacka like they are getting ready to pull back and when they say 'heh' they shove the rail over.
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S1576, T86-243
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56:16
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56:17
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Right a lot of rest in between.
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S1576, T86-243
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56:18
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56:21
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And a harder shove at the end. And they say 'heh', they all go.
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S1576, T86-243
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56:26
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56:36
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Yes, but someone was short and someone only just come to the mood of the liner. And the men work whatever song he sung, they work that rhythm.
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S1576, T86-243
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56:36
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57:19
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Uh, now when the men are lining, they put the rail down, and then of course the captain, he's crouched straddle of it and uh, looks down it so he can tell when it's lined up in exact line with the others. And if they carry it, well he'll say shove it over and if they carry it too far, he'll say send it back and when they get it exactly in line, he'll tell em 'join it ahead' but then they corrupted that to 'join ahead' and all of them say 'join ahead' for 'join it ahead'. And, uh, so, uh, this song is about a lining and the rhythm goes with, they put this lining bar, this long steel bar, crow bar, between their legs so they have greater purchase and pull back on it.
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S1576, T86-243
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57:22
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57:25
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Their back is to the rail.
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S1576, T86-243
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57:28
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57:33
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They're pulling up on the bar. They don't have to look at the rail because that's the captain's job to see when it's right.
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S1576, T86-243
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57:36
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57:41
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They just push the flange of this lining bar under the rail and then pull back on it.
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S1576, T86-243
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57:43
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57:50
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Oh, they can just feel it. Sometimes they look back, you know, but most of them, they just can feel it and they send it back on there.
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S1576, T86-243
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57:60
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58:28
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Well, it's different; it's not any particular time except just the feeling of the singing liner. Whatever song he starts. If it's a fast rhythm they work fast; if its's a slow one, well they work, you know, a little slower but they get just as much work done, it seems, somehow or another.
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S1576, T86-243
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58:28
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58:31
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ZNH singing low.
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S1576, T86-243
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58:32
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58:51
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Alright, this song I'm going to sing is a lining rhythm and I'm going to call it Mule on the Mount though you can start with any verse you want and give it a name and it's the most widely distributed work song in the United States and it has innumerable verses and whatnot about everything under the sun and it's a lining rhythm though they sometimes sing it just [cut off].
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S1576, T86-244
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0:57
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3:39
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Zora Neale Hurston sings 'Mule on the Mount'
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Notes |
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S1576, T86-244
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10:26
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12:50
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Zora Neale Hurston sings 'Let the Deal Go Down'
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Notes |
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S1576, T86-244
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13:47
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15:54
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Zora Neale Hurston sings 'Uncle Bud'
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Notes |
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S1576, T86-244
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16:30
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17:17
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Zora Neale Hurston sings 'Oh the Buford Boat Done Come'
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Notes |
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S1576, T86-244
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17:58
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19:49
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Zora Neale Hurston sings 'Cuz Ever Been Down'
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Notes |
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S1576, T86-244
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20:11
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21:10
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Zora Neale Hurston sings 'Halimuhfack'
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S1576, T86-244
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22:20
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23:07
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Zora Neale Hurston sings 'Tampa'
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Notes |
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S1576, T86-244
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23:59
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26:24
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Zora Neale Hurston sings 'Po Boy'
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Notes |
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S1576, T86-244
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27:04
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28:49
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Zora Neale Hurston sings 'Mama Don't Want No Peas No Rice'
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S1576, T86-244
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0:00
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0:12
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In the jook houses and doing any kind of work at all, chopping wood and in the lumber camps and everywhere you find this song. No where you can't find parts of this song, 'Mule on the Mount'.
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S1576, T86-244
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26:33:00
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How do you want this?
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S1576, T86-244
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35:07:00
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The one without the words.
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S1576, T86-244
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0:17
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0:25
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The tune is consistent but the verses, you know how things, in every locality you can find some new verses, everywhere.
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S1576, T86-244
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0:28
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0:34
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Well, there's some place that I haven't heard that same verse 'Mule on the Mount' but there's no place that I don't hear some of the same verses.
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S1576, T86-244
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0:39
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0:44
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Well, I heard the first verses, I got it in my native village of Eatonville, Florida from George Thomas.
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S1576, T86-244
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0:48
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0:53
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I'm going to sing, oh I guess, all the tune is the same. I'm going to sing verses from a whole lots of places.
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S1576, T86-244
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3:47
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3:50
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Yes, sometimes they sing 30 and 40 verses.
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S1576, T86-244
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3:51
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3:56
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It's one of these things that's grown by incremental repetition until perhaps it's the longest song in America.
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S1576, T86-244
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3:59
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Zora Neale Hurston laughs [distortion]
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S1576, T86-244
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8:26
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10:26
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Surely, but I have to give all that other data. My name is Zora Neale Hurston and I'm going to sing a gambling song that I collected at Boston Florida. Turpentine is still there. And the men are playing a game called Georgia Skin. That's the most favorite gambling scheme among the workers of the South. And they lose money on the drop of a card, the fall of a card. And there's a rhythm to the fall of the card and after they get set with the two principles and the other people are called pikers and anybody that wants a special card, he pick it out and they call that, uh, picking one in the rough.
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S1576, T86-244
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9:18
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Well, you see, they take a deck of cards and they shuffle it real good and watch the man to be sure he don't steal nothing. That is, that he don't set a cub. There are four cards of every kind in the deck. And when the card like the card you have selected falls, you lose. Sometimes if you don't watch the dealer he'll put three cards just like his own down at the bottom of the deck so that everybody falls before he does and then he wins all the money.
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S1576, T86-244
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9:45
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And he puts it on the table. They don't allow him to hold it because they're afraid he'll steal.
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S1576, T86-244
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9:49
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So they, he puts it on the table and he turns over a card.
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S1576, T86-244
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9:54
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Card by card and if the card is just like yours, when it falls, you lose. And, uh, so they holler when he gets all set, when the principles has got their cards and the pikers has got theirs and then the man will say he wants them to put the bets down and he'll say 'Put the money on the wood, and make the bet go good and then again, put it insight and save a fight' and so they all get the bets down and then he start and they'll holler, 'Let the deal go down, boys, let the deal go down'. And someone will start singing.
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S1576, T86-244
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12:59
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13:40
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Uncle Bud is not a work song. It's a sort of social song for amusement and it's so widely distributed, it's growing all the time by incremental repetition, and it is known all over the South. No matter where you go you can find verses of Uncle Bud. And, uh, it's a favorite song. And the men get to working in every kind of work and they just yell down on Uncle Bud and nobody particular leads it. Everybody puts in his verse when he gets ready and Uncle Bud goes and goes and goes.
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S1576, T86-244
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13:34
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13:40
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Never! It's one of those jook songs and the woman that they sing Uncle Bud in front of is a jook woman.
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S1576, T86-244
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13:44
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13:46
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Yes, I heard it from women [laughs].
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S1576, T86-244
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15:59
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16:02
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I know I know some more verses but right off I don't recall.
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S1576, T86-244
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16:13
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16:24
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Oh the Buford Boat Done Come' is a song from the Geechee country in South Carolina but I heard it down in Florida from a Geechee that moved down in Florida. I forget her name right now.
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S1576, T86-244
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16:25
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It's a little dance song with a Charleston rhythm.
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S1576, T86-244
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17:03
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17:07
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Uh, it's just a dance song and then they dance a Charleston rhythm on it.
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S1576, T86-244
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17:09
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17:10
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No, group dancing.
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S1576, T86-244
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17:12
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17:15
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Oh, just any group, any working group, and they'll clap their hands on it and sing.
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S1576, T86-244
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17:24
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17:30
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I'm a sing a blues, 'Cuz Ever Been Down', and I got it at Palm Beach from a fellow named from Johnny Bardon.
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S1576, T86-244
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17:34
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17:36
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I got it in 1933.
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S1576, T86-244
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17:42
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17:55
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Well, it's one of those things just go around all the jooks and what not like that and it goes by incremental repetition, a verse here and a verse there. I don't suppose anybody knows how old it is and when it started.
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S1576, T86-244
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19:50
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19:55
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I heard 'Halimuhfack' down on the East Coast.
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S1576, T86-244
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19:58
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I don't remember. I was in a big crowd and I learned it in the evening during the crowd. And I'm just, don't can't exactly remember who I, who did teach it to me but I learned it from the crowd most exactly more from one.
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S1576, T86-244
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21:17
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21:44
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I learn them. I just get in the crowd with the people if they singing and I listen as best I can and I start to joining in with a phrase or two and then finally I get so I can sing a verse and then I keep on until I learn all the songs, all the verses, and then I sing them back to the people until they tell me that I can sing them just like them and then I take part and I try it out on different people who already know the song until they are quite satisfied that I know it and then I carry it in my memory.
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Transcription |
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S1576, T86-244
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21:48
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21:54
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Well, that's the same way I got them. I learn the song myself and then I can take it with me wherever I go because I -- [cut off]
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S1576, T86-244
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22:07
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This is a song, uh, called 'Tampa'. I've known it ever since I could remember so I don't know who taught it to me but I heard it sung in my native village when I was a child, not in front of the old folks, of course.
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S1576, T86-244
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23:12
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I've known it all my life. No, it was not confined to children. Everybody sung and danced on it. And you hear a Negro orchestra, a local orchestra, they often played it now, played the tune. They don't sing the words but the tune is one of their favorite dance tunes.
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S1576, T86-244
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23:28
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23:48
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This one. Some of them call it 'Po Boy' and some of them call it 'Po Gal' but it's a pretty well-distributed blues tune all over the South. The words are not rhymed. It's a typical Negro pattern. The same line repeated three times with a sort of flip line on the end and the change is in the tune rather than the words for the most part.
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S1576, T86-244
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23:52
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23:57
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I'm - no, not all my life but I kept learning verses as I've gone around.
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S1576, T86-244
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26:36
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27:02
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Mama Don't Want No Peas No Rice' is a song from Nassau in the Bahama islands. They are great song makers and their tunes are decidedly more African than the ones made by the negroes in America. They make songs so rapidly they say 'Anything you do we put you in sing'. And in a few hours they have a song about it. Mama don't want no peas no rice is about a woman who wanted to stay drunk all the time and her husband is really complaining about it. He's explaining to the neighbors what's the matter with his wife and why they don't get along better.
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S1576, T86-245
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10:18
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Uh Zora Hurston speaking. In all the big work camps, sawmills, and turpentine, still, and road camps and whatnot they have a man to go down and wake up the camp. And he has various chants and hollers to wake them up and sometimes he wakes them up as he goes along.
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S1576, T86-245
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10:40
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Well, I heard these at Loughman, a big sawmill down state in Polk County.
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S1576, T86-245
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11:57
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This is a Nassau song from the Bahamas.
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S1576, T86-245
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12:01
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Well, they sing this song when they're jumping the fire dance.
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S1576, T86-245
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12:08
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The fire dance is some sort of African survival in the West Indies and they beat the drums and sing these little songs.
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S1576, T86-245
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12:17
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Well, I was doing research down there, collecting songs out of Columbia University and I collected quite a few of them and this is just one of them.
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S1576, T86-245
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12:44
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And they keep that up until the drum is cold and then they change it and they sing another song of the same kind.
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S1576, T86-245
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12:53
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Uh, this one, this song is [distortion].
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S1576, T86-245
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14:07
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Yes, Dr. Corse. Uh, they are sung in Key West and Miami and Palm Beach and out in the Everglades where a great number of Nassaus are working in the bean fields and whatnot. Uh, there are a great number of them in Florida who hold jumping dances every week.
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