Chuck Levy, January 1, 2013
Joe Bone (Greg Allen, Bob Murphy, and Caitlin Murphy) at the
Florida Masters concert at the Stephen Foster Old-Time Music Weekend,
September, 2012. Walk Chalk Chicken is a
Melvin Wine tune.
-snip-
Although I'm showcasing a video of this old time fiddle tune, this post focuses on information about this song and its lyrics instead of the song's tune.
This is one of several YouTube videos of the old time fiddle tune "Walk Chalk Chicken".
I chose to highlight this particular video because I live within walking distance (ten blocks) from the Stephen Foster Memorial Home (where that composer was born and lived) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
****
Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents information about and lyrics for the old time song and fiddle tune "Walk Chalk Chicken With His Head Pecked Off". That song is also known as "Walk Talk Chicken With His Head Pecked Off", "Walk Chalk Chicken With A Necktie On" and "Walk Chalk Chicken".
This post also includes my guess about the meaning of the "Walk, Chalk Chicken With His Head Pecked Off" song.
The content of this post is presented for historical and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the unknown composer/s of this song. Thanks also to (African American) Thomas W. Talley for his collecting this song and including it in his now classic 1922 book Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise And Other Wise. Thanks to (White American) Melvin Wine for performing this fiddle tune and sharing it with others. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of the YouTube video whose link is provided.
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INFORMATION ABOUT THE SONG "WALK CHALK [or WALK TALK] CHICKEN WITH YOUR HEAD PECKED OFF"
[Numbers and alphabetical order added for referencing purposes only]
Excerpt #1
From https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Walk_Chalk_Chicken
"Traditional tune archive
WALK, CHALK CHICKEN. AKA - "Walk Chalk Chicken with a
Necktie On." Old-Time, Reel. A cross-tuned (AEae) piece related to the
“Farewell to Whiskey (1)/Young America/Ladies Triumph (1)” family of tunes,
from the playing of Coppen, West Virginia, fiddler Melvin Wine. He learned the
tune from his father, who was the only person he ever heard play it.
Comparisons with a similarly-titled rhyme from early 20th century collector
Thomas Talley's 1922 collection (Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise and Otherwise) called
"Walk, Talk, Chicken with Your Head Pecked," or with the early
minstrel song "Ginger Blue" (which uses the words "walk, talk"),
are speculative, and no direct connection has been established."...
****
Excerpt #2
From https://www.banjohangout.org/archive/315826
A) Tobus - Posted - 03/04/2016
"As my first TOTW contribution, I'd like to post one of my
favorite tunes, Walk Chalk Chicken. Also
known as Walk Chalk Chicken With a Necktie On.
Many of you probably already know this tune, but I think it's time to get it official in the TOTW list.
The source recording seems to be the late great West Virginia fiddler Melvin Wine (1909-2003). He claimed to have learned it from his father, but never heard anyone else play it. This tune appears in the Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle tunes, and was on Melvin Wine's 1976 album Cold Frosty Morning.
The title of the tune, and thus its origin, seems to be a regular source of debate. The name is thought by some to be a reference to the Chalk Line Walk or Cake Walk, which has a storied history in the antebellum South (allegedly spreading from Florida from about 1850). Apologies for the sensitivity of the subject, but this was a dance performed by slaves to parody the high-society mannerisms of their masters, and ended up being the subject of later minstrel shows as a reverse parody. However, there has been no actual documented connection between the Chalk Line Walk and this tune. Other suggested origins include folk poems and more minstrel show material.
Claims of these connections tend to be based on the name of the tune alone, and it is certainly understandable. The title is so unique, it would be difficult to imagine any other origin unrelated to these possibilities. Any additional information or input would be appreciated, if anyone has it. I wonder if more background could be gleaned from the book on Melvin's life?
So, on to the tune...”
-snip-
Tobus' comment continues with a
description of how this tune is played and information about some of the
recordings of this tune. Including YouTube videos.
Most of the responses to that comment also focus on how it is played
as well as recordings of this tune, including YouTube videos. However, here are two comments from that discussion thread that focus on the source for the tune and focus on the song's lyrics:
**
B) BrendanD - Posted - 03/04/2016
…"The tune had always seemed oddly familiar to me from the time I first learned
it, and at some point I realized that it's a version of the Irish tune
"Farewell to Whiskey"! I'd love to know the path it took to get from Ireland
to Braxton County, WV, and into the Wine family's repertoire. I have not heard
it from any other source than Melvin.”….
**
C) JanetB - Posted - 03/06/2016
"Welcome to TOTW, Tobus!
Your choice of tunes is wonderful, as is your presentation. I'm always happy to learn more from the
fiddling of Melvin Wine. In the book Fiddling
Way Out Yonder, the Life and Music of Melvin Wine by Drew Beisswenger there
is almost a page of information on the tune, as well as a transcription of his
fiddling. It discusses the musicality of
Walk Chalk Chicken, confirms that he learned it from his father, and compares
it to related tunes. Here's a quote from
the book: "The term 'walk chalk' is
found in the song 'Ginger Blue,' described by White (ANFS, p. 380-81) as a
pre-minstrel song, but the song's connection to 'Walk Chalk Chicken' is
unclear."
-snip-
Here's an excerpt about the chalk line that I shared in 2005 on this Mudcat folk music forum's discussion thread: https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=80680 "Folklore: The Cake-Walk & Other Plantation
Dances"
"Also,
with regard to the chalk line, here's a quote that is excerpted from Lynne
Fauley Emery's book "Black Dance From 1619 to Today" { Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton Books,1988,
p.92}
"Entertainer Tom Fletcher heard stories about the Cake-Walk from his grandfather, who had won many prizes in calkwalking on the plantation. Fletcher quoted his grandfather as saying "Your grandmother and I, we won all the prizes and were taken from plantation to plantation."
Flether related that his grandfather had told him, that when the Cake-Walk began it was known as the 'chalk-line walk'.
"Sometimes on pleasant evenings, boards would be laid
down for an impromptu stage before the verandah so the guest could have a good
view of the proceedings and a real shingig would take place with singing and
dancing. The cake-walk. in that section and at that time, was known as the
chalk line walk. There was no prancing, just a straight walk on a path made by
turns and so forth, along with the dancers made their way with a pail of water
on their heads. The couple that was the most erect and spilled the least or no
water at all was the winner." {Tom Fletcher, "The Tom Fletcher
Story-100 Years of Negro In Show Business" [New York: Burdge and Company,
Ltd. 1954, p. 19]"
****
LYRICS FOR "WALK TALK CHICKEN WITH YOUR HEAD PECKED OFF" IN THOMAS W. TALLEY'S BOOK "NEGRO FOLK RHYMES"
WALK, TALK, CHICKEN WITH YOUR HEAD PECKED!
Walk, talk, chicken wid yō' head pecked!
You can crow w'en youse been dead.
Walk, talk, chicken wid yō' head pecked!
You can hōl' high yō' bloody head.
You's whooped dat Blue Hen's Chicken,
You's beat 'im at his game.
If dere's some fedders on him,
Fer dat you's not to blame.
Walk, talk, chicken wid yō' head pecked!
You beat ole Johnny Blue!
Walk, talk, chicken wid yō' head pecked!
Say: "Cock-a-doo-dle-doo—!"
Negro Folk Rhymes Wise And Other Wise , originally published
in 1922 by (African American) Thomas W. Talley https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27195/27195-h/27195-h.htm, [Pg 5]
-snip-
"Walk talk" probably is a folk processed form of "walk chalk". In 19th century and early 29th century African American culture "walk chalk" meant "to walk the chalk line", the chalk line being the dance that later became known as "the cakewalk".
The second verse of the entitled "Gooseberry Wine" in that book (on page 45) includes the words "walk, chalk":
Oh walk chalk, Ginger Blue!
Git over double trouble.
You needn' min' de wedder
So's de win' don't blow you double."
****
SPECULATIVE MEANING OF THE SONG "WALK, CHALK, CHICKEN WITH HIS HEAD PECKED OFF"
My guess is that this song uses a fight between two chickens as a analogy for two men who have fought each other. The winner's is badly bruised (His head is (almost) pecked off or he suffered a lot of pecks (bruises). But he still won that fight (He beat up/whooped the other chicken. Therefore, instead of feeling bad that he didn't completely vanquish his opponent, he should accept his win and do a winner's walk (by strutting down the perhaps imaginary chalk walk and crow "Cock-a-doo-dle-doo—!"like a confident rooster.
This song could have been used to teach coping skills, i.e. to help children and others prepare for how they should feel and react when they are confronted by people or circumstances and they do the best the best they can do. When that happens. remember to "give yourself some slack" and "big up yourself".
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