tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post1519290592821089652..comments2024-03-28T07:58:41.643-04:00Comments on pancocojams: Lead Belly's And Several Other Versions Of "Give The Fiddler A Dram" (Examples & Comments)Azizi Powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14963772326145910073noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5893219718076521675.post-16728951339638039452013-12-12T09:55:19.289-05:002013-12-12T09:55:19.289-05:00In that 1940 recorded interview Lead Belly shared ...In that 1940 recorded interview Lead Belly shared how "Gonna Dig A Hole Put The Devil In" was sung by "negroes" who saw their "boss" coming. ("Negroes" is no longer used as a referent for Black Americans and even before that referent was retired, many Black people and other people considered it offensive to spell that word with a small "n". Lead Belly said that this song was sung this way "a long time ago". I'm not sure if "the boss" here means the slave master or the person who was in charge of men who were working post-slavery.) <br /><br />In my opinion, Lead Belly's recollection of how "Gonna Dig A Hole" was sung demonstrates how Black people masked their true feelings about their life situations in front of White people while they insulted them in coded form right in front of White people's faces. Combining the religious song "Dig A Hole Put The Devil In" with a familiar fiddler song "Give The Fiddler A Dram" masked the fact that the workers considered "the boss" to be "the devil". Notice that after the boss leaves, the song changes to the defiant verse "I don't give a damn". Also, notice how Lead Belly says that the boss didn't understand that the "dig a hole" song was sung as an insult. "They all clappin and shoutin. The devil comin now. He don't know what it's all about, but they do."<br /><br />It's interesting that the White folklorist Alan Lomax doesn't appear to have caught the hidden purpose of those lyrics as sung by those men, and the defiant nature of their "don't give a damn" lines.<br /><br />That said, it's important to clarify that, in contrast to some Black militants in the late 1960s and 1970s's use of "the devil" as a referent for a White person, it appears to me that in Lead Belly's recollections of that song, the boss was equated with the devil, not because of his race, but because of his role as a boss (or a owner of slaves). Azizi Powellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14963772326145910073noreply@blogger.com