Edited by Azizi Powell
In addition, this post presents my rewording of that transcript into standard American English so that what she was saying could be better understood..
Part I & II are complete reprints with minor changes of pancocojams posts that were published in 2013.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/07/blog-post.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post 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 dance song "Whoa Mule" and the singing game song "Peep Squirrel".
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 all those whose files of these songs are included in this pancocojams post .
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LYRICS FOR "WHOA MULE (CAN'T GET THE SADDLE ON)" AS SUNG BY CELINA LEWIS
[These lyrics and my Pancocojams editor's notes about them are also given in Part I of this pancocojams series.]
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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THE AUTO-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT OF THE SOUND FILE OF CELINA LEWIS' RENDITION OF "WHOA MULE (CAN'T GET THE SADDLE ON" (given "as is" without time stamps)
[This sound file is embedded at the top of this pancocojams post.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx2Yg29W9zY
"Worm you can you just
at home well you can you to set off get that you can get
a circle get that you can you to send all right em you can
you to settle all right at you can use a long run you can
you can run you can you depends on run you can you depend on
you can you do
then we're gonna dance to we dance we
skip we kind of walk left to jela just walk up and down the
floating on water
oh you know in lockup and we like that love it locked up
you're going as long as up and down Toby dance is right
on boiling dirty kill all of us all of them do it together
all over camp you
yeah that's a style now dance you don't def not spider
filthy dance you got to
hold up you know"
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MY RE-WORDING OF THAT AUTO-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT INTO STANDARD ENGLISH
Additions and corrections are welcome.
Well, I mean* you just be at home and get how many people
together that you can get. And they form a circle. How large the circle is
depends on how many people you can get.
With a large circle, you have to run (move some distance) and it depends on
whether you can do that or not.
We’re gonna dance to this song. We skip. We kind of walk left to right like
we’re floating on water. We’re standing close together (“locked up”) and we
like dancing close together **. As long as it’s a up and down Toby
dance *** It’s boiling hot and it’s dirty and the work
is killing us. But we do this dance together all over the camp.
Yeah, that’s the style now to dance close. You definitely don’t do any spider
filthy dance moves,**** but you got to hold your own ."
-snip-
Here are my explanations for the meanings of certain words and phrases that Celina Lewis used in her 1950 remarks which are documented in that auto-generated transcript.
*My guess is that the word "worm" in that auto-generated transcript may have been how the transcriber heard the words "Well, I mean".
**In the context of Celina Lewis' comments, the phrase "being locked up" probably means [a couple] standing, or dancing very close together. Dancing itself and especially dancing close together was very much frown upon by members of Christian churches during the lae 19th century and in the 20th century. Some church people still retain those attitudes in the 21st century..
*** Celina Lewis' referent to "Toby dance" probably came from minstrelsy and the early 20th century American theater (tent shows) as a referent for uptempo jig dances. Here's some information about the old-time meaning of the phrase "Toby dance":
AI Overview (results July 25, 2026)
..."Theatrical and Minstrel Traditions
Toby Shows: Popular
20th-century tent-repertory variety shows across rural America centered around
a homespun, comedic "Toby" character who featured in musical
interludes, jigs, and walkarounds."...
https://festival.si.edu/past-program/1981/a-celebration-of-the-american-tent-show
Tent theater developed in America as a popular form in the late 1870s, during a period of profound social change brought about by the shift from a rural agricultural to an urban industrial economy. Burgeoning metropolitan areas had become the principal stages of expressive culture, and their theaters mirrored the ethos and concerns of the urban populace rather than those of their rural neighbors. Those in the small towns viewed the theater with mixed emotions: though the stage was admittedly a vehicle for respectable cultural expression, its urban form was seen as basically disreputable. A rural theater movement that reflected provincial tastes and borrowed heavily from regional folk culture eventually developed out of this tension.
Borrowing from circus and minstrel traditions, tent rep companies usually opened the show with a band concert and interspersed variety specialties, ranging from juggling to ventriloquism, between the three or four acts of the play. The dramas themselves were often built around the ideological conflict between country and city life, idealizing the common man in a way that appealed to rural audiences. Certainly the most enduring character to rise out of this dramatic genre was that of Toby, a redheaded, freckle-faced country boy whose humorous antics and recurrent, though at times unwitting, triumphs over the forces of evil made him a favorite. With a personality drawn directly from American folklore, Toby captured the hearts of rural theater-goers and became so popular that many tent rep companies regularly included a Toby bill in their weekly fare. (The 1969 Festival featured a Toby show from Iowa.)
Whereas these tent shows were largely made up of white performers, a distinct Afro American entertainment tradition also thrived under canvas. From the 1920s through the 1940s, large troupes of black musicians, dancers, and comedians traveled through the South in variety shows such as the Silas Green or Florida Blossom minstrels. Using a format that merged minstrelsy with vaudeville, these tent spectacles presented fast-paced revues of classic blues singers, jazz bands, tap and eccentric dancers, comedy teams and choruses of dancing girls. Blues singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and comics such as Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham and Butterbeans and Susie spent much of their careers on the tent show circuit, performing material firmly rooted in black folk culture to enthusiastic Afro American audiences."...
-snip-
I added italics are added to highlight these sentences.
**** The words "spider filthy dance" probably refers to "dirty" (sexually suggestive) dancing
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This concludes Part III of this pancocojams series.
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