Edited by Azizi Powell
Latest Revision: March 2, 2022
This pancocojams post presents a few text (word only) examples of African American versions of "Little Sally Walker"* singing games that are provided with dates only or geographic locations and decades.
*These games may also be called "Little Sally Water" , "Little Sally Waters", "Little Sally Ann", or "Little Sally Walker Walkin' Down The Street".
The content of this post is presented for folkloric purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2011/09/little-sally-walker-story-tellin-it.html for the closely related pancocojams post entitled "Little Sally Walker (A Story. Tellin It Like It Is & Like It Was)". Also, click the links given below for other pancocojams posts about "Little Sally Walker".
-snip-
DISCLAIMER:
I'm aware that the earliest forms of the singing game "Little Sally Walter/s "Little Sally Walker", and "Little Sally Ann" are from White Europeans and I'm also aware that there are examples of "Little Sally Walker" etc from the Caribbean.
Nothwithstanding these points, the purpose of this pancocojams post is to document some African American examples of this singing game along with demographic information.
This compilation doesn't mean to suggest that the examples of "Little Sally Walker" etc. in this compilation are the earliest versions of that singing game among African Americans. It's likely that there were earlier versions.
This compilation also doesn't mean to imply that these were/are the only examples of these singing games that were/are sung by African Americans or any other people in the geographical cities and states that are given.
Please add to this compilation by sharing any other African Amerian examples of "Little Sally Walker" etc. along with demographic information (city/state and decade remembered).
Thanks!
****
AFRICAN AMERICAN EXAMPLES OF THE SINGING GAME "LITTLE SALLY WALKER"
or "Little Sally Water/s", "Little Sally Ann" (with demographic information)
These examples are given in chronological order.
LITTLE SALLY WALKER
Another of the most popular and enduring ring games was Little Sally Walker
Little Sally Walker
Sittin in a saucer
Cryin for the old man
To come for the dollar
Ride, Sally, ride
Put your han's on your hips
Let your backbone slip,
Shake it to the East
Shake it to the West
Shake it to the one that you love the best.
-Black Recreation: A Historical Perspective ,Jearold Winston Holland, editor; published in 2002 by Burnham Inc., Publisher, chapter "The Antebellum Period, page 99)
****
SALLY WALKER
[Intro]
Now here's another little children's play song
They gonna play, and they gonna put one inside the ring
And they all gonna be going around and they gonna sing
And this one, in the ring, is sitting down in a chair
They gonna give this one in the chair a hankie
And when they holler, "Rise, Sally, rise, wipe your weeping eyes," she's gonna rise out of the chair
And when they say "fly to the east and fly to the west, fly to the one you love the best," she's gonna fly and catch one that's going around the ring and catch him by the hand
Gonna put him in the ring and he's gonna sit down in the chair what Sally got out of
Now here's what they're gonna sing while they all go 'round the ring
[Verse 1]
Little Sally Walker, sitting in a saucer
Weeping and a-moaning like a turtle dove
Rise, Sally, rise, wipe your weepin' eyes
Fly to the east, fly to the west
Fly to the one that you love the best
[Bridge]
Now it's gonna be Jimmy Walker, now it's a little boy
Don't care who get in that ring, it's gotta be Walker
[Verse 2]
Little Jimmy Walker, sitting in a saucer
Weeping and a-moaning like a turtle dove
Rise, Jimmy, rise, wipe your weepin' eyes
Fly to the east, fly to the west
Fly to the one that you love the best
[Verse 3]
Little Charlie Walker, sittin' in a saucer
Weeping and a-moaning like a turtle dove
Rise, Charlie, rise, wipe your weepin' eyes
Fly to the east, fly to the west
Fly to the one that you love the best
[Verse 4]
Little Jenny Walker, sittin' in a saucer
Weeping and a-moaning like a turtle dove
Rise, Jenny, rise, wipe your weepin' eyes
Fly to the east, fly to the west
Fly to the one that you love the best
[Verse 5]
Little Wally Walker, sittin' in a saucer
Weeping and a-moaning like a turtle dove
Rise, Wally, rise, wipe your weepin' eyes
Fly to the east, fly to the west
Fly to the one that you love the best
[Outro]
Fly to the east, fly to the west
Fly to the one that you love the best
-Leadbelly, https://genius.com/Lead-belly-sally-walker-lyrics, release date January 9, 1942
-snip-
Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ju_0mD-jro&ab_channel=Leadbelly-Topic for a sound file of Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) singing this song.
****
LITTLE SALLY WALKER
Little Sally Walker, sitting in a saucer,
Rise, Sally, rise.
Now wipe your rosy cheek
And put your hand on your hip
And let your back-bone slip.
Oh shake it to the east; shake it to the west,
Shake it to the very one that you love the best.
Little Sally Walker, sitting in a saucer,
Rise, Sally, rise.
Now wipe your rosy cheek
And put your hand on your hip
And do the Mobile dip.
Oh shake it to the east; shake it to the west,
Shake it to the very one that you love the best.
From Little Sally Walker, Alabama Folklife Association.
Collected in Atmore, Alabama, in 1947.
- http://www.jesterbear.com/Hoodoo/SallyWalker.html LittleSally Walker (This is an African American blog.)
****
LITTLE SALLY WALKER
Little Sally Walker
Sittin in a saucer
Cryin for the old man
to come for the dollar
Ride, Sally, ride
Put your hands on your hips
Ah, let your back bone slip
Ah, shake it to the east
Ah, Shake it to the west
Ah, shake it to the very one
You love the best.
Source: Harold Courlander, Negro Folk Music Of Alabama
Folkways FE 4417
Game Directions: This ring game song is widely known both in the South and the North. It is frequently played in Harlem streets, and the play that accompanies it is the same as in Alabama. To the words "Put your hands on your hips, let your backbone slip," etc., each participant in turn stands in the middle of the circle and makes the appropriate motions, ending by a movement toward "the very one you love the best." The chosen one then takes his turn in the center.
-Informant/Performer:Children of Lilly's Chapel School, Lilly's Chapel, AL, 1950
- retieved from https://kodaly.hnu.edu/song.cfm?id=929
-snip-
The referent "Negro" is no longer used for African Americans/Black Americans. Here's a quote from https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2010/october.htm that answers the question
"When did the word Negro become socially unacceptable?"
"It started its decline in 1966 and was totally uncouth by the mid-1980s."
****
LITTLE SALLY WALKER
"Little Sally Walker, an African-American version of a children’s game song (as played by Anna Robinson in the mid 1950's; who is now in her 60's).
Little Sally Walker,sittin’ in a saucer,
weepin' and cryin’ cause nobody loves her.
Rise Sally rise wipe your weepin’eyes
put your hands on your hip,
and let your backbone slip.
Oh, shake it to the East;
Oh, shake it to the West.
Shake it to the very one that you love the best.
The game of Little Sally Walker is for ages 7 – 12
Here's a description of the action that accompanied this rhyme: Prior to song starting- Girls form a circle; one girl is chosen to be “Sally”
1st line- "Sally" sits down on the inside of the circle (as if sitting in a saucer) and pretends to weep and cry; the rest of the circle walks counter-clockwise holding hands and walking to the song’s beat
2nd line & line 3 -“Sally” remains inside the circle but now rises to stand in the center part of the circle and does what the rhyme is saying(wipes her eyes); the rest of the group is now standing still and claps their hands and stomps their feet to the beat.
3rd line & 4th line -Sally now stops and puts her hands on her hip and moves her hip into a dip and the girls in the circle who performed this rhyme stand still while "Sally" in the middle performs a movement.
As the rhyme progresses the children forming the ring try to exactly imitate Sally's movements (they shake their hips to movements the same time Sally does) on the words to the East the hips move to the right, and on the words to the West the hips move to the left.
Still standing in front of whoever Sally may stop in front of "Sally" continues doing the same dance or movement of her hips that she did previously.
5th- On the words you love the best Sally is standing still and facing the girl she stopped in front of, now the game is over; the former “Sally” rejoins the ring, and the new Sally immediately enters the center of the ring and the game begins again. When both boys and girls play this game together the game takes on a little more interest."
-Anna R., http://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/african-american-singing-games-movement.html, May 8, 2008 [comment]
-snip-
This entry was reformatted for this post. Unfortunately, Anna R. didn't include information about where this game was played that way.
The portion of the ring game when "Little Sally Walker" dances in front of a person forming the ring and that person becomes the new "Little Sally" is the same as or very similar to what I call "switching places" ring games.
Click https://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/switching-places-ring-games-part-1.html for Part I of a cocojams2 post entitled "Switching Places Ring Games (Part 1-Description & Other Comments)". The link for Part II of this cocojams2 series is found in that post.
****
LITTLE SALLY ANN
Little Sally Ann
Sittin in the sand
Ah, weepin and ah cryin
For a nice young man
Rise, Sally rise
Wipe your weepin' eyes
Turn to the east
And tune to the west
And turn to the very one
that you love the best.
-Atlantic City, New Jersey (1950s); Azizi Powell childhood memories
-snip-
Girls* formed a circle. I vaguely remember holding hands and walking clockwise? around "Sally" who was sitting in the center of the circle with her head down (pretending to be crying). On the words, "Rise, Sally, rise". "Sally" stood up and followed the instructions of the song. One the words "turn to the east" etc. "Sally"covered her eyes with her right hand, and held her left hand out, pointing while she turned around in the center of the circle. The person who she was pointing to on the word "best" was the new "Sally". The former "Sally" took that person's place in the circle and the singing game immediately started again.
*I think this was a girls only game that was played by girls who were younger than ten years old or so.
****
LITTLE SALLY WALKER
Little Sally Walker
Sittin in a saucer
A weepin and a cryin for a nice young man.
Rise, Sally rise.
Wipe your weepin eyes.
Turn to the east and turn to the west
[And] turn to the one that you love the best.
-Multiple sources, including Azizi Powell's observations of this game in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1969 when I moved to that city to date [Feb. 2022].
-snip-
[I wrote this comment in 2014] When I first saw this game played in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (after moving there in 1969), I was surprised that children sang "Lttle Sally Walker" (sitting in a saucer) instead of "Little Sally Ann (sitting in the sand). Then I realized that I may have learned the "Little Sally Ann" version because I grew up in Atlantic City where there is sand and the beach, while Pittsburgh has neither. The realization that rhymes might change because of where you live sparked my interest in rhyme collection, although I didn't "seriously" begin collecting rhymes until the mid 1980s.
****
LITTLE SALLY WALKER
"Little Sally Walker (sways in rhythm)
Sitting in a saucer,
Ride, Sally, ride! (struts and sasshays in rhythm around
circle)
Put your hands on your hips, (both hands on hips)
Awww, let your back bone slip... (roll hips during
"Awww"; lean back and rock back)
Shake it to the east (shake one hip to one side)
Shake it to the west (shake other hip to other side)
Shake it to the very one (shimmy and shake both hips back
and forth)
That you love the best (walks around circle)
Come on now...
Shake it to the east! (shake one hip to one side)
Shake it to the west!(shake other hip to other side)
Shake it the very one, (shimmy and shake both his)
That you love the best! (stop in front of the next child to
be in the center)
Come on now... (pulls child into center and takes that
child's place in the ring)
Players stand in a ring around one child, standing in the center. This "Sally" struts around the circle and acts out the words to the song, as the others sing and clap. When the Sally shakes it "to the very one that you love the best," she stands in front of another player, she had picked who will be the next Sally.
That Sally goes into the center. The game begins again and continues until everyone has had a chance to be the Sally.
Boys playing this game could be refered to as "Little Sammuel Walker" or "Little Sammy Walker."
Above is the African American variant of Little Sally Walker
which I learned in the mid 1990's. I dimly remembered learning a similar
version in Florida in the 1960's. In Florida, I only remember a small ring
older (age eight and nine) girls playing this game."
-http://www.jesterbear.com/Hoodoo/SallyWalker.html LittleSally Walker (This is an African American blog.)
****
LITTLE SALLY ANN
"Little Sally Ann, Sitting in the sand, Cry, Sally, cry, Wipe
your eyes. Turn to the east, Turn to the west, Turn to the one, You love best.
My husband learned this version in 1963 in Catonsville,
Maryland."
-http://www.jesterbear.com/Hoodoo/SallyWalker.html LittleSally Walker [African American blog]
LITTLE SALLY WALKER WALKER DOWN THE STREET
"
The basic words to this [contemporary version of "Little Sally Walker"] are:
Little Sally Walker
was walkin down the street
She didn't know what to do
so she stood in front of me
and I said
Ooh girl do your thing
do your thing
Stop!
Ooh girl do your thing
do your thing
Stop!
-snip-
Instructions: girls form a circle with one girl in the middle. The girls forming the circle don't hold hands but stand in place while they recite the words to the song.**
The girl who is playing the part of "Little Sally Walker" doesn't sing. While the others sing, she moves around the circle, and eventually [arbitrarily picks some one to stand in front of. When the girls sing "ooh girl do your thing, do your thing" , the girl does a popular social dance of the hip shaking variety..When the girls sing "Stop"!, she stops dancing and starts up again when the other sing again.
BTW, the girl that she is standing in front of is supposed to also dance, but sometimes I've seen others have to remind that girl that she is supposed to be dancing too {another indication to me that this is a relatively new game song]...I also get the impression that,in the grand ole tradition of "Show me your motion game songs [a tradition that I'd bet the farm these girls don't know anything about], the girl who "Little Sally" chose to stand in front of is supposed to exactly imitate the dance that "Little Sally" does.
At the end of the second "Stop" the girl who Sally
stands in front of is the next Sally and the former one rejoins the circle.
This continues until the girls get tired of singing it, and move on to another
'song', usually a handclap rhyme like "I don't want to go to Mexico No
More" or "Tweedleelee"-both of which IMO are definitely much
more popular than "Little Sally Walker" or even "Miss Mary
Mack".
When they perform this modern version of "Little
Sally Walker" I've also seen girls standing in place in a circle but as
they stand in place they also perform a bass sounding "stomp stomp"
clap 'step' routine. However, the more I think about it, this addition was
probably adult driven. My 32 year old school teacher daughter and I share game
songs and rhymes with co-ed but mostly girl elementary school age groups. An
integral part of the sessions is 'show & tell' when children have the
opportunity to share the songs {as they call rhymes}" that they know.
After the girls showed us what I call "Little Sally Walker walkin down the
street, my daughter who loooves African American Greek letter steppin,
suggested adding the stomp stomp clap step to the song. And the girls loved it.
From then on that's how they performed that song {at least in front of us}.
And come to think of it, that 'step' addition is the folk
process at work.
- Azizi Powell, https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=83749 , Origins: Little Sally Walker Other versions, 13
Aug 05; [added Feb. 19, 2022: In both cases that I referred to in this mudcat comment, the children who performed that song were African American.]
-snip-
Feb. 19, 2022 -When I shared with my daughter that I was working on a pancocojams post about "Little Sally Walker Walking Down The Street", she began to sing that song with the different words
Oh, girl do your thing, do your thing STOP
Oh, girl do your thing, do your thing DROP
She explained that this was another version of that singing game that she remembers from the late 1990s and the early 2000s. The "drop" meant that the person who is dancing "dropped" (quickly danced down bear the floor/ground).
Some other posts [comments] in that discussion thread provide information about early versions of "Little Sally Walter' from the United Kingdom. That discussion thread also includes other examples of this singing game from the United States (without indicating race/ethnicity) and from the Caribbean.
I wrote in that post [comment] that I remembered reading a comment in another mudcat discussion thread about another version of "Little Sally Walker Walking Down The Street". Here's that portion of that post:
..."I was a counselor at a camp about three years ago, and
the campers (good-natured high school students) played a surprising amount of
games during break time. Not surprisingly, they weren't all innocent little
rhymes. For example, Little Sally Walker has been reincarnated! She's now a
circle game, with the chant:
She didn't know what to do, so/she jumped in front of me and
said:
'Hey, girl, shake that thing,/shake that thing like it ain't
no thing.
Come on, girl, shake that thing,/shake that thing like it
ain't no thing."...
-LNL, https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=4300, Children's Street Songs, 01 Mar 04
-snip-
LNL didn't include any geographic location or any information about the race or gender of these campers.
-snip-
WARNING: Australian rapper Iggy Azalea recorded "Sally Walker" in 2019. That song begins with the lyrics of "Little Sally Walker Walking Down The Street". However, the video of that song shows a young woman walking out into the street and being killed in a car crash. For that and for other reasons, I believe this video isn't suitable for children.
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIB1v_n4MY8 for a video of that shows a Black woman singing a version of "Little Sally Walker" and demonstrating to a White woman how to do the movement "let your backbone slip"
ReplyDelete