Whoa Mule! Can't Get The Saddle On
Mike Seeger - Topic
Sep 5, 2019
Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group
Whoa Mule! Can't Get The Saddle On · Mike Seeger
Animal Folk Songs For Children
℗ 1992 Rounder Records, a division of Concord Music Group, Inc.
This is Part II of a four part pancocojams series about the 19th century African American originated dance song "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On)" and the 19th century originated game song "Peep Squirrel".
Part I compares "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On) with two other songs: the 19th century Southern Black American song/old time banjo (Bluegrass) song "Whoa Mule Whoa" and the 19th century African American game song "Peep Squirrel". Part I also presents one sound file and two text (word only) versions of "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On)".
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/03/whoa-mule-cant-get-saddle-on-lyrics_17.html for Part II of this series. Part II is a complete reprint of a 2013 pancocojams post which continues the presentation of information about the history and early examples of the songs "Whoa Mule" and the African American song "Peep Squirrel".
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/07/sound-file-lyrics-auto-generated.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. Part III is a 2026 pancocojams post that showcases a 1950 sound file of Celina Lewis singing "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On"). That post also includes the lyrics for that rendition and Celina Lewis' comments about that song. In addition, that post includes my re-wording into standard English of Celina Lewis' comments.
Click __ for Part IV of this pancocojams series. That post showcases two YouTube videos of the 21st century African American originated game song "Ride That Pony". That post also presents information and lyrics for "Ride That Pony" as well as a few selected comments about that singing game. In addition, this post includes my opinion that the 19th century dance song "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On"), and the 19th century singing game "Peep Squirrel" are precursors of the "Ride That Pony" singing game. Furthermore, this post includes information and one video example about the 21st century African American originated singing game "Little Sally Walker Walking Down The Street". That singing game may have been created shortly before "Ride That Pony" and those two singing games are performed the same way.
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The content of this post is presented for historical, folkloric, socio-cultural, and recreational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the unknown composers of this song. Thanks to Celina Lewis, Bessie Jones, and others whose renditions and comments about this song were documented by folklorist. Thanks to the folklorists who collected & recorded this song, and thanks to Pete Seeger whose rendition of that song is published in this pancocojams post .
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INFORMATION ABOUT "WHOA MULE (Can't Get The Saddle On)"
"Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On" is an up-tempo late (?) 19th century adult dance song that originated among African Americans.
"Who Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On" and "Whoa Mule Whoa" are different songs. "Whoa Mule" is a 19th century African American dance song which is also sung & played as an old time/Bluegrass banjo song.
There are numerous versions of "Whoa Mule Whoa" and each of the text forms of that song are composed in a verse/chorus pattern. The verses are two line rhyming floaters which are found in multiple songs, including the 19th century Black dance song entitled "Simon Slick".
Links to text examples and a video example of Whoa Mule are provided in the related links section of this post.
In contrast, "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On)" is a song with a short varying line & a repeated refrain, a format which lends itself to it being sung using a call & response pattern. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that "Whoa Mule" was the primary source of "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On").
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SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THIS SONG AND "PEEP SQUIRREL"
The song "Whoa Mule: Saddle" resembles the 19th
century African American children's play-party/chasing game "Peep
Squirrel". Here's an excerpt of a version of "Peep Squirrel":
Here Squirrel
Yada dada diddle um
Catch that squirrel
Yada dada diddle um
Run Squirrel
Yada dada diddle um
-snip-
[From
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/lomaxbib:@field(DOCID+@lit(l2699b2)
The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip; Cerlina Lewis;
-snip-
The only difference in the text (words) of "Whoa Mule
(Can't Get The Saddle On" and the
text of "Peep Squirrel" is in the refrains for both songs. The tunes
that I heard songs sound very similar, but the tune for "Peep
Squirrel" has a much faster tempo.
"Peep Squirrel" is described on the above cited website as a "play-party motion song; a game for chasing". It's possible that "Whoa Mule:Saddle" may have also been performed as a motion/chasing song. However, there are allusions to the performance of "Whoa Mule:Saddle" being risque. One hint of that is found in prefacing comments that the singer Cerlina Lewis made in 1950 before she sang a version of "Whoa Mule:Saddle" that is included in folklorist Harold Courlander's Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 6: Ring Game Songs and Others Various Artists FW04474. Another hint of the risque nature of "Whoa Mule:Saddle"'s performance is found in another online quote which is found in Part II of this post.
Georgia Sea Isles folk singer Bessie Jones recorded a version of "Peep Squirrel" that includes lines from "Whoa Mule: Saddle". That version is given in Part II of this post.
Update: January 8, 2022. YouTube has several video or sound file examples of "Whoa Mule Whoa" ("also given as "Whoa Mule"). YouTube also has two video examples of "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On".
Thanks also to Dan Foster for a comment [in the pancocojams discussion thread for the 2013 post] that presents information about "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On" and a link to a sound file of African American fiddler Teodar Jackson (1903-1966) from Austin Texas playing a rendition of that song. That comment is reprinted in the comment section for Part III of this 2026 pancocojams series.
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UPDATE: March 2, 2022
Here's another version of the singing game "Peep
Squirrel" from the section entitled "The Play Of Slave Children"
in Jearold Winton Holland's 2002 book Black Recreation: A Historical
Perspective (Burnham Publishers, 2002)
"For slave children, there was minimal categorization of masculine or feminine play activities. [page 89] As the children began to grow older, ring games were often the opportunities for youngsters to learn how to interact with the opposite sex and to assume gender roles. Two such games were "Peep Squirrel" and "King William Was King George's Son". In "Peep Squirrel" a boy and girl stand some distance apart, facing each other. A different girl gets behind the boy and a different boy lines up behind the girl. The rest of the children sing the following lines while performers suit the action to the words:
[page] 99
Peep squirrel, eedle, deedle, deele, dum
Walk around squirrel, eedle, deedle, deeledum,
Hop aaround squirrel, eedle, deedle, deeledum,
Skip along squirrel, eedle, deedle, deeledum,
Run the squirrel, eedle, deedle, deeledum,
Catch that squirrel, eedle, deedle, deeledum, 90
If the boy finally caught the girl (squirrel) he was
entitled to a kiss."
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TEXT (WORD ONLY) EXAMPLES OF "WHOA MULE (CAN'T GET THE
SADDLE ON)"
Example #1: 1:15 minute sound file
"Whoa Mule! Can't Get the Saddle On"
From the album Animal Folk Songs for Children by Mike,
Peggy, Barbara & Penny Seeger
© 1992 Rounder
http://www.amazon.com/Whoa-Mule-Cant-Get-Saddle/dp/B0010XJ700
Can't get the saddle on [repeat both lines 2x]
[using that same pattern]
Catch that mule
Ride that mule
Run mule
Can't get the saddle on [repeat both lines 4x]"
-snip-
My description: This is an uptempo, call & response
song.
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Example #2
From
http://www.folkways.si.edu/TrackDetails.aspx?itemid=11578
FW04474_201
Session with Celina Lewis, (a)Catch That Squirrel,
(b)Sangaree, (c) Whoa Mule, Can't Get the Saddle On, from Harold Courlander's
Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 6: Ring Game Songs and Others Various Artists
FW04474 1955
“The singer was an old woman when these songs were recorded.
She had a reputation of having been a fine and spirited singer when she was
young."
[Text of "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On)- Celina Lewis; Alabama, 1950]
All you church folks looking right at me, and they calI on
me
to praise ... get up there!
Whoa, mule, I can't get the saddle on, (2)
Stop that mule, I can 't get the saddle on, (2)
Whoa mule, I can't get the saddle on, (2)
Run mule, I can't get the saddle on, (2)
Can't you catch that mule, can't get the saddle on,
Catch that mule, can't get the saddle on, (4)
Yon go that mule, can't get the saddle on
-snip-
Pancocojams Editor's Notes
I believe that the word "yon" that is given in these lyrics is a shortened form of the
word "yonder" (meaning "seen from a distance"). In more
standard American English, that line would be given as "Yonder goes that
mule" (I can see the mule in the distance.)
The "Go that mule" version of that line is the one used by Bessie Jones in the 1972 Step It Down (authors Bessie Jones and Bess Lomax Hawes). "Go that mule" is also the line for that song that was given by "an elderly informant" in Harold Courlander's 1963 book Negro Folk Music U.S.A and most websites that I've come across use that wording in their lyrics for that song. However, I believe that "Go that mule" is an example of folk etymology and "Go that mule wasn't the earliest version of those lyrics. The "yon" word may have been dropped from that line because that wasn't the way that Bessie Jones and others learned it. Another possibility is that the word "yon" may have been dropped because that word's meaning was no longer understood. Yet, "go that mule" doesn't make any sense in Standard American English or in the versions of African American Vernacular English that were used when this song was published and afterwards. However, that hasn't stopped people from singing or, at least, from quoting that version of that line.
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Bessie Jones' example of "Whoa Mule (Can't Get The Saddle On" is included in Part II of this pancocojams series.
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This concludes Part i of this pancocojams series.
Thank you for visiting pancocojams.
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