"My Lula Gal" And "Bang Bang Lulu" - Information With A Few Relatively Dirty Verses Of These Songs

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest revision - August 17, 2023

This pancocojams post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series on Old Time music sources for the large family of "Miss Susie Had A Steamboat" and Miss Lucy Had A Baby" children's playground rhymes.

This pancocojams post presents information about and examples of the Old Time song/ rhymes entitled "My Lula Gal". This pancocojams post also presents information about and a few relatively dirty versions of the "Bang Bang Lulu" rhymes and songs. 

The content of this post is presented for folkloric and cultural purposes. 

Thanks to the unknown composers of these rhymes and songs and thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/similarities-differences-between-bang.html for a 2013 pancocojams post entitled "Similarities & Differences Between "Bang Bang Lulu" & "Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat".

Also, click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2021/04/mighty-sparrow-bang-bang-lulu-calypso.html for the pancocojams post entitled "Mighty Sparrow - "Bang Bang Lulu" (Calypso sound file, lyrics, & comments)."

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WARNING- This post includes lyrics that aren't suitable for children.

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INFORMATION ABOUT & EXAMPLES OF "MY LULA GAL " AND "BANG BANG LULU"  SONGS AND CHANTS 

Excerpt #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang_Bang_Lulu
" "Bang Bang Lulu" is a traditional American song with many variations. It derives from older songs most commonly known as "Bang Bang Rosie" in Ireland, "Bang Away Lulu" in Appalachia,[1] and "My Lula Gal" in the West.[2][6] The form "Bang Bang Lulu" became widespread in the United States from its use as a cadence during the World Wars. The song uses the tune of "Goodnight, Ladies".

Traditional song

All versions concern a woman and her various lovers. The early forms were sometimes very directly crude, violent, or infanticidal.[7] Published versions probably drastically understate the song's popularity,[1] particularly since the first mentions allude to 78[8] or 900[9] additional verses unfit for printing. Robert Gordon, the first head of the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song, included his variants of Lulu among the "Inferno" section which was excluded from the library's general collection for its "bawdy and scatological subject matter".[10]

One verse appeared in Owen Wister's 1902 novel on p. 96 The Virginian:[8]
"If you go to monkey with my Looloo girl,
I'll tell you what I'll do:
I'll carve out your heart with my razor, AND
I'll shoot you with my pistol, too—

Nine appeared in Carl Sandburg's 1927 American Songbag among its "Railroad and Work Gangs" songs, including Wister's and:[9]

My Lulu hugged and kissed me,
She wrung my hand and cried,
She said I was the sweetest thing
That ever lived or died.[11]

My Lulu's tall and slender,
My Lulu gal's tall and slim;
But the only thing that satisfies her
Is a good big drink of gin.

My Lulu gal's a daisy,
She wears a big white hat;
I bet your life when I'm in town
The dudes all hit the flat.

I ain't goin' to work on the railroad,
I ain't goin' to lie in jail,
But I'm goin' down to Cheyenne town
To live with my Lulu gal.

My Lulu, she's an angel,
Only she aint got no wings.
I guess I'll get her a wedding ring,
When the grass gets green next spring.

My Lulu, she's a dandy,
She stands and drinks like a man,
She calls for gin and brandy,
And she doesn't give a damn.

Engineer blowed the whistle,
Fireman rang the bell,
Lulu, in a pink kimona
Says, "Baby, oh fare you well."

I seen my Lulu in the springtime,
I seen her in the fall;
She wrote me a letter in the winter time,
Says, "Good-bye, honey," that's all.

Sandburg credited many of the verses he knew as derived from the 17th-century Scotch song "Way Up on Clinch Mountain",[12] now usually known as "Rye Whiskey".

Roy Acuff and his Crazy Tennesseans recorded "When Lulu's Gone" under the pseudonym of the Bang Boys in 1936.[13] Another version—"Lulu"—was recorded by Oscar Brand on his 1958 Old Time Bawdy Sea Shanties. Verses from this song also developed into "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms", recorded by Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs and many others after them.[2]

Military cadences

Most military cadences suggested explicit rhymes but skipped back to the chorus rather than complete them ...

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Excerpt #2
From https://secondhandsongs.com/work/59534/all

Written by

Traditional

Publication date

1902

Language

English

Comments

The first printed reference of this licentious ditty comes from the novel "The Virginian", by Owen Wister, where the main character sings one verse (the other 78 verses, said Wister, were "unprintable"). Very popular among cowboys in the XIX century, and then among U.S. soldiers during WWI.

Alternative titles: "When Lulu's Gone", "Bang Away, My Lulu", "She Is a Lulu" and many others. Sometimes "Lulu" becomes "Rosie", "Suzie", "Lula" and so on."

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Excerpt #3
From  http://kristinhall.org/songbook/SeaAndPub/BangBangLulu.html
Bang Bang Lulu: Words & Music: Traditional Drinking Song
"What do people do with children's songs when they grow up and tie one on with like-minded pals?  They morph them into drinking songs.  The basic tune is the same as "Miss Lucy".  Since this is a traditional song, there are as many verses as there are drunken voices to sing them.  My favorite versions are the ones that allude to the "naughty words", but never have to actually say them.  That's the one I learned at camp and I like the clever wordplay.  Here is the chorus and a slew of verses.  Have fun with them or make up your own. 

 

CHORUS:

D                             A7

Bang, bang, Lulu; Lulu, bang, bang.

[alt: "Bang, bang, Lulu; Lulu's gone away"]

D                     G              D      A7    D

Who's gonna bang bang Lulu, now that Lulu's gone away?

[alt:  Who's gonna bang bang, now  Lulu's gone away?}

 

D                                        A7

Lulu had a boyfriend who drove a garbage truck.

D               G               D      A7

Never collected garbage, 'cause all he did was...

 

CHORUS:

 

She had another boyfriend, his name was Tommy Tucker.

He took her to the garden, to see if he could...

 

CHORUS:

 

Lulu had a baby, named him Jungle Jim.

Put him in the basin, to see if he could swim.

He swam down to the bottom, came back to the top.

Lulu got excited, pulled him out by his...

 

CHORUS:

 

Cocktail, ginger ale, five cents a glass.

If you don't like it, you can throw it up your...

Ask me no more questions, I'll tell you no more lies.

Ask me that again, and I'll spit right into your...

 

CHORUS:

 
Ikey and Spikey, laying in the ditch

Ikey called Spikey, a dirty son of a...

 

CHORUS:

 

Bring down the children, let them play with rocks.

When they get a little older, they'll learn to play with...

 

CHORUS:

[...]

 

CHORUS:

 

High upon the mountain, sitting on the grass

Her skirt was so short, it showed you all her...

 

CHORUS:

 

[...]

 

CHORUS:

Now, Lulu has two boyfriends, they both are very rich.

One, the son of a banker, the other a son of a...

 

CHORUS:

 

Now, Lulu had a baby, it came as quite a shock.

She couldn't name it "Lulu", because it had a..."

 
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Visitor comments are welcome.

Reeltime Travelers - "Shout Lula" (example, lyrics, and comments)

winecountryfilms1, Published on May 10, 2013

The Reeltime travelers perform "Shout Lula" at The Hogcaller's Reunion on September 26th., 2004 at Fetzer's barn in Covelo, CA.

Roy Andrade on banjo, Heidi Lambert-Andrade on fiddle, Martha Scanlan on guitar, Thomas Sneed on mandolin and Travis Stuart on bass

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series on Old Time music sources for the large family of "Miss Susie Had A Steamboat" and Miss Lucy Had A Baby" children's playground rhymes.

This post showcase a video of the Old Time Music song "Shout Lula" and presents  information, lyrics, and comments about that song. This post also presents information about the meaning of the word "shout" in this context of these Old Time Music songs. 

The Addendum to this post presents some information about the music genre that is known as "Old Time Music". 

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the unknown composers of this song and thanks to Reeltime Travelers for their rendition of this song. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
A version of this pancocojams post was originally published in 2013. That post has since been deleted.

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LYRICS: SHOUT LULA
(as sung by the Reeltime Travelers)

Call [lead singer] Shout to sing
Response: Shout Shout
[sing this pattern 4x]

Call: I got a bottle of corn
Response: Shout Shout
[sing this pattern 4x]

I got a pain in my wrist
Shout Shout
[sing this pattern two times]

I got a pain in my head
Shout shout
[sing this pattern two times]

I got a pain in my back
Shout Shout
[sing this pattern two times]

I got slipper shoes
Shout Shout
[sing this pattern two times]

I’m gonna shake it baby
Shout Shout

[Sing this pattern two times]

Aunt Jane’s corn bread
Sweet sweet sweet
Take some leave some
Sweet sweet sweet
Take some leave some
Sweet sweet sweet

[Lead singer sings these entire words.
Responders sing “Take some leave some/sweet sweet sweet”

Instrumental -.054-2:04

Lead singer: Oh little Lula
Oh child
Oh little Lula
Oh child
Oh little Lula
Oh child

Shout little Lula
Shout little babe
Said I’m gonna buy you a little red dress

[Instrumental]

Lead: Oh little Lula
Oh child
Oh little Lula
Oh child

Lead: Shout little Lula
Shout Shout
Tell me what you shoutin ‘bout

[Instrumental]

Lead: Oh little Lula
Oh child
Oh little Lula
Oh child

Lead: Shout little Lula
Shout your best
I’m gonna buy you a red dress

[Instrumental]

Lead: Oh little Lula
Oh child
Oh little Lula
Oh child

Lead: Shout little Lula
Shout and sing
I’m gonna buy you a diamond ring.

[Instrumental]
-snip-
This transcription is by Azizi Powell from the video. Additions and corrections are welcome.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE SONG "SHOUT LULA"
From http://bluegrassmessengers.com/shout-lula--version-3-lomax.aspx
..."Shout Lula/ Hook and Line

Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, Virginia, Southeast

ARTIST: Source: Duncan Emrich 'American Folk Poetry: An Anthology' Little, Brown and Co p 64. Recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax from the singing, with banjo accompaniment, by Pete Steele at Hamilton, Ohio, 1938. Library of Congress record LP21.

CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes; DATE: 1844

HOOK AND LINE SONGS: The title for the large family of songs that have originated from the “Old Dad” minstrel song in 1844 including "Shout Lula," "Shout Lou," "Shout Old Lulu," "Hook and Line," “The Shad,” "Banjo Sam," "Mr. Catfish," "Shout Lulu," "Jackfish" "Seven and A Half," "Just From Tennessee," "Shout Oh Lulu," “Fish on a Hook,” and “Buck Creek Gals.”

The “hook and line” songs can be split into two basic categories; the “hook and line” (Fish that catfish by its snout/ Turn that catfish wrong side out) songs that talk about fishing and the “Shout Lula” (Shout, Lulu, shout, Lulu, shout, shout/ What in the world you shoutin’ ‘bout?) songs. “Shout Lula” is a fast banjo version from the Appalachian region.

HOOK AND LINE: The title first appears as a recording by the Dykes Magic City Trio in 1927. George Roark recorded “Hook and Line” in 1928 in Bristol, TN on Vi uniss, while the Hatton Brothers did a version with square dance calls in Richmond Ind., 1933. Here’s an excerpt from the Dykes Magic City Trio version:

Gimme the hook and gimme the line
Gimme that girl they call Caroline
Shout, Lula, shout, shout
What in the world are you shoutin' about. 

[...]
SHOUT LULA: Old-Time, Breakdown. USA; east Tenn., southwestern Va., north Georgia, north Carolina, Ohio. G Major. GDAD. AABB. Art Rosenbaum (1989) says "this song is much more current in the tradition than its absence from printed collections would suggest." A banjo piece and dance tune, it was the repertoires of Dock Boggs and John Dykes (of the Dykes Magic City Trio) under the title "Hook and Line." One of the earliest recordings is Samantha Bumgarner’s as “Shout Lou” in 1924 on Co 146-D.
Rufus Crisp, Woody Wachtel, Roscoe Holcomb, Pete Steele, Ralph Stanley, and Fiddlin' Cowan Powers 1877-1952 (Russell County, southwest Va.) played it as well as Uncle John Patterson (Carroll County, Ga.), a sometimes Skillet Lickers hanger-on who learned to pick the tune on the banjo "on his mother's {champion banjoist Bessie Patterson} lap when he was three years old" (Rosenbaum). Here’s a short excerpt from “Shout Lula:”
Shout Lula shout, shout, what in the world you shoutin' bout,
(Banjo fill)
Shout Lula shout, shout Grandma's done run out.
(Banjo fill) 
Since "Shout Lula" seems to related to blues and work "hollers" perhaps the "Lula" originally refers to Lula, Mississippi or the Lula women from that town. Here's an excerpt of the lyrics to "Dry Well Blues" by Charlie Patton:
Lord, the Lula womens, Lord, puttin' Lula young mens down
Lula men, oh, puttin' Lula men down
Lord, you outta been there, Lord, the womens all leavin' town
Brown "222 Lulu" gives this information: A medley, as are so many of the traditional songs of the Southern mountains. Since our text was published in 1909 Henry has reported a briefer version from Avery county (JAFL xlv 167-8, FSSH 436-7). Perrow (JAFL xxvi 127) prints a song from Kentucky containing our first stanza with "Dad's old lip" for "my old ad" and suggests that our "ad" should be "dad" — the granddaddy of
all fish.
"Lulu.' Reported in JAFL xxii (1909) 248 by Louise Rand Bascom from the mountain country of North Carolina, without more definite location. Miss Bascom notes that the last two lines are "like the popular song which used to be sung everywhere,
Johnnie get your hair cut,
Johnnie get your hair cut,
Johnnie get your hair cut
Just like mine."

Louise Rand Bascom 1909 lyrics:

Love you fur a nickle,
Love you fur a dime.
Lulu get your Haircut,
Just like mine."....

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Here's a comment about the Grayson/Whittier recording of "Shout Lula" from https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.music.country.old-time/ATTT1UtigL8 "rec.music.country.old-time › Ralph Stanley and Old-Time Music"
posted by Oldtime1 (Joe Wilson) 5/29/97
"Little Lula/Lulu/Lulie"
"Paul asked if there are two Lulu songs. Yes. The "Bang Away Lulu" lyric he quoted is not at all like "Shout Lulu.

When I interviewed G. B. Grayson's oldest daughter, Lilly Grayson Sturdivant, in 1972 near Rising Sun, MD (with Ken Irwin and Marian Leighton), she told about his compositions. She said he did not write "Shout Lulu" and that she thought it was "an old song." If it was old when Grayson recorded it in the late 1920s, it may be from minstrelsy. It certainly has the feel and rhythm of a minstrel song:
"Takes a nickle, takes a dime, To see Little Luly, cut a shine." Has anyone checked minstrel texts?"
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/grayson-and-whitter-shout-lula-example.html for another example of "Shout Lula".

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WHAT "SHOUT" MAY MEAN IN THE SONG "SHOUT LULA"
Here's an explanation about the word "shout" from
Subject: RE: Lyr. Req: Hook and Line
From:kytrad*
Date: 23 Nov 02 - 05:15 PM

This may be relevant...Bessie Jones and I used to share stages together, from early sixties into seventies, and we used to do play-party games- she'd sing hers and I'd sing one from our family that matched it. She had many "shout" songs, and always explained that the word, "shout" in a game or song meant, "dance." Younger members of her family and community would sometimes be with her, and as she sang they'd sing with her, clap hands and dance or "shout."
-snip-
* "kytrad" is the screen name for White American folk music singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player Jean Ritchie (ngwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player. Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Ritchie for more information about Jean Ritchie.

Bessie Jones (February 8, 1902 - July 17, 1984) was an African American singer who is best known for forming & performing as soloist for the Georgia Sea Isle Singers, a group whose repertoire consists of Black old time secular & religious songs. Along with Bess Lomax Hawes, Bessie Jones co-authored a collection of Georgia Sea Isle children's recreational songs & rhymes entitled Step It Down. Click http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bessie-jones-mn0000051492/biography for more information about Bessie Jones.

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ADDENDUM: INFORMATION ABOUT OLD TIME MUSIC
Excerpt #1: From http://www.folkways.si.edu/classic-old-time-music-from-folkways/american-folk/album/smithsonian: "Old-time music features playing styles that pre-date bluegrass, emerging from the string band tradition stretching back to the early years of United States history. Both African-American and Anglo-American ingredients are at its core, the banjo having African origins, the fiddle European."

**
Excerpt #2
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-time_music
"With its origins in traditional music of Europe and Africa, old-time music represents perhaps the oldest form of North American traditional music other than Native American music, and thus the term "old-time" is an appropriate one. As a label, however, it dates back only to 1923."

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ADDENDUM: 
PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE ABOUT THE COMPOSER/S OF THIS SONG 
Like other Old Time tunes & songs, "Shout Lula" was known in Black American & non-Black American communities.

This song almost certainly originated among African Americans, given the call & response pattern of some examples of "Shout Lula", its two line rhyming pattern, the inclusion of certain Black vernacular terms, and inclusion of floating verses that are found in other African American originating old time songs.

That said,there was a lot of cross pollination (folk processing) from Black and from White populations who both performed, sung, and danced to "Shout Lula" and other Old Time Music songs.

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Visitor comments are welcome.

What "Cutting Monkey Shines" & "Cut A Shine" Mean

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post provides information & speculations about the meanings of "cutting monkey shines" ("making monkey shines"), "cut a shine" ("cut shine), "cuttin up" and "cut a monkey".

This post is part of a continuing series that presents information and speculation about the meanings of certain words & phrases that are found in American Old Time Music and other music genres.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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MONKEY SHINE (MONKEYSHINE)
Definition #1 (verb)
"cutting" monkey shines (later "monkeyshines")
Acting silly (as monkeys are said to do), acting mischievously, making a prank out in public, making a public spectacle of yourself acting like a monkey

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Definition #2: (noun)
From http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monkeyshine
"prank—usually used in plural
Examples of MONKEYSHINE

First Known Use of MONKEYSHINE
circa 1832"
-snip-
This statement probably refers to the Minstrel song "Jump Jim Crow". Information about that song is found below.
-snip-
Definition #3:
Monkeyshines [noun] mischievous or playful tricks, including jokingly making funny faces or gestures
From

http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/monkeyshine.html "TheGrammarphobia Blog"
"Monkeyshine! March 29th, 2007
Q: I’ve been curious about the word “monkeyshines” since I was a child and visited my grandmother, who was born in the early 20th century in a small town in Kansas. As we drove away, she’d make odd gestures and call out “monkeyshines.” I know that the word means acting up, but I wonder where it comes from. Does it have its origins in vaudeville or minstrel shows?

A: The word “monkeyshine” (often “monkeyshines”), referring to a mischievous or playful trick, has a very interesting and disturbing history.

It first appeared in 1828 (as “munky shines”) in a song by Thomas “Daddy” Rice, a popular white comedian who performed in blackface. In the song, called “Jump Jim Crow,” Rice sings and dances as an old plantation slave: “I cut so many munky shines, I dance de gallopade.” (The gallop, or gallopade, was a 19th-century dance.)

The song also gave us the term “Jim Crow” for segregation and other discrimination against African-Americans. But the use of the word “shine” as an abusive term for a black person may have nothing to do with Rice’s song. The usage didn’t appear in print until the early 20th century, well after the song’s heyday, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Your guess that “monkeyshine” comes from minstrel shows was right on target. In fact, some people consider “Daddy” Rice to be the father of minstrelsy.
-snip-
Italics added to highlight that sentence.

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Song Example For "Cut Monkey Shines" - "Jump Jim Crow" [1828]
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_Jim_Crow
"Jump Jim Crow" is a song and dance from 1828 that was done in blackface by white comedian Thomas Dartmouth (T.D.) "Daddy" Rice. The first song sheet edition appeared in the early 1830s, published by E. Riley.

...Come, listen, all you girls and boys, I'm just from Tuckahoe;
I'm going to sing a little song, My name's Jim Crow.
Chorus: Wheel about, and turn about, and do just so;
Every time I wheel about, I jump Jim Crow.
I went down to the river, I didn't mean to stay,
But there I saw so many girls, I couldn't get away.
I'm roaring on the fiddle, and down in old Virginia,
They say I play the scientific, like master Paganini,
I cut so many monkey shines, I dance the galoppade;
And when I'm done, I rest my head, on shovel, hoe or spade.
-snip-
Italics added by me to highlight that line.

My interpretation of the line which includes a reference to the gallop dance is that that dance was just a part of "cutting monkey shines". I don't believe that line means that "cutting monkey shines" always meant doing any dance.
-snip-
Here's an example of conversational use of the phrase "making monkey shines"
From http://www.folkstreams.net/principal,58http://www.folkstreams.net/principal,58 "Othar Turner, Cane Fife Maker" by William Ferris
[Otha Turner describing how he and other musicians attract a crowd for the community picnic he sponsors]
“Then I start the drums to playing and the cane fifes to blowing. We play "Shimmy She Wobble,"8 "My Baby Don't Stand No Cheating On Her."9 "Granny, Will Your Dog Bite?" "Rolling and Tumbling,"10 "Glory Hallelujah,1111 "When the Saints Go Marching In." We play all stuff like that you know. We got a whole lot of different pieces we play. You know, you can sing to the drums, we've sung to them many times and played. It just depends on what you want to do. But now ordinary playing in a picnic, that's just for drawing a crowd. We go out there and. go to playing the drums, sometimes go to hollering and playing and making monkey shine with the drums, just cutting up, you know. That's what will draw your crowd. That's what that's for."
-snip-
In the context of this conversation, "making monkey shine" means
having fun playing the drums, without any serious intent to perform any particular song, for instance, playing chords before an actual musical performance. The expression "monkeying around with ___" has a similar meaning.
From http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/monkey-around
"Monkeying around:
verb - intransitive
to mess around, waste time."
-snip-
Information about "just cutting up" is found below.

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Definition #4
(verb)
Black people purposely acting a fool in front of, pandering to White folks
From http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/4/messages/1048.html"I heard an African American comic talk about being criticized by members of his race for "cutting monkey shines" in front of white people. Meaning, as I understood it, acting all jolly in a manner that would please the white folks. Acting a fool. Pandering, I guess you could call it."
-snip-
Read the same definition below for "cutting the monkey".

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Definition #5:
noun - the name of a particular type of dance

In "Harlem Shuffle" by Bob & Earl [1966]

http://www.shsu.edu/lis_fwh/book/brill_building/Dance%20Crazes2.htm "Dance Crazes" *
"Bill Black's Combo- "Monkey-Shine" (1963)

Also in "Harlem Shuffle" by the Rolling Stones**

Excerpt for the Rolling Stones song:
From http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rollingstones/harlemshuffle.html
Huhuuuhuhuhuhuuuuuuh, hu!
You move it to the left, yeah, and you go for yourself.
You move it to the right, yeah, if it takes all night.
Now take it kinda slow,
with a whole lot of soul.
Don't move it too fast.
Just make it last.
You scratch just like a monkey.
Yeah ya do, real cool...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, do the Harlem Shuffle.
(Do the Monkey Shine)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, shake your tail feather, baby.
(Shake shake, shake shake yeah!)..."

* The R&B dance "The Monkey" probably came from the "Monkey Shine" dance. Visit that page for a list of other Rock & Roll/ R&B records including these songs that promoted the "Monkey" dance "Do The Monkey", "It's Monkey Time" and "Mickey's Monkey".

**Is the Rolling Stones' song a cover of the earlier Bob & Earl record?

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Editorial Comment:
I believe that the phrases "cutting a shine" ("cutting shine"), "cutting the monkey" ("cutting a monkey"; "cuttin monkey"), and "cutting up" all come from the phrase "cutting monkey shine" ("cutting monkeyshine").

DEFINITION #1: "CUT A SHINE"
Music Genres: American Minstrel, American Old Time Music
http://www.gatlinburgtnweather.com/southern_slang_dictionary.html
"cut a shine" - to dance"

Example:
From https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.music.country.old-time/ATTT1UtigL8
"Little Lula/Lulu/Lulie"

Oldtime1 [Joe Wilson], 5/29/97
Little Lula/Lulu/Lulie

Paul asked if there are two Lulu songs. Yes. The "Bang Away Lulu" lyric he quoted is not at all like "Shout Lulu." When I interviewed G. B. Grayson's oldest daughter, Lilly Grayson Sturdivant, in 1972 near Rising Sun, MD (with Ken Irwin and Marian Leighton), she told about his compositions. She said he did not write "Shout Lulu" and that she thought it was "an old song." If it was old when Grayson recorded it in the late 1920s, it may be
from minstrelsy. It certainly has the feel and rhythm of a minstrel song:
"Takes a nickle, takes a dime, To see Little Luly, cut a shine."...*
-snip-
Italics added to highligh that line.

Click the "Shout Lula" tag found below for several pancocojams post about this Old Time Music song, including a post about the Grayson & Whittier recording of that song.

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DEFINITION #2: "CUT A SHINE"
Music Genre: American Music Hall song

Definition
From http://www.omnilexica.com/?q=cut+a+shine
"Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English (1905)
Abridged from the Seven-volume Work, Entitled: Slang and Its Analogues by John Stephen Farmer, William Ernest Henley
to cut a shine, to make a show ; every shine, every one ; as verb, (a) to make a stir, or impression"
-snip-
I think that this definition of "cut a shine" - to make a positive impression [to shine like the sun] is a positive spin on the older meaning of "cutting a shine" in which the person showed off, making a public spectacle of himself or herself by acting like a monkey.

****
Song Examples from http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=129161
[hereafter known as "Mudcat: McGuiness"]
posted by Joe Offer, Date: 30 Apr 10 - 02:28 AM
"Here are the lyrics from the 1880 sheet music at the American Memory Collection (Library of Congress):

WHEN MCGUINESS GETS A JOB
(Jim O'Neil & Jack Conroy)

CHORUS:
Then cheer up, Missus Reiley, don't give 'way to the blues,
You and I will cut a shine, new bonnets, and new shoes,
As for me, I'm done a-crying, no more will I sigh or sob,
I'll wait till times get better, when McGuiness gets a job.

Copyright 1880 by Mrs. Pauline Lieder"
-snip-
This song is also known as "Last Winter Was a Hard One"
-snip-
Italics added by me to highlight that line.

****
"Mudcat: McGuiness" posted by Joe Offer, Date: 30 Apr 10 - 12:28 AM
"...Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry on this song:
Last Winter Was a Hard One
DESCRIPTION: Two Irish women lament the hard times. Neither woman's husband could find a job, and both families suffered. They curse the Italians who have arrived to take Irish jobs. They look forward to better times when their husbands find work
AUTHOR: Words: Jim O'Neil / Music: Jack Conroy
EARLIEST DATE: 1880 (sheet music)

****
Music Genre: British Music Hall song
From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=126008
Lyr Req: I Do Like A S'Nice S'Mince S'Pie, posted by Jim Dixon, 24 Jan 11 - 03:18 PM
"The British Library [London] has the sheet music, described thus:

I DO LIKE A S'NICE S'MINCE S'PIE.
Written and composed by W. David and B. Lee.

Author: Worton David; Bert Lee
Publisher: London : Star Music Publishing Co, [1914]
Edition/Format: Musical score
My Old Red Vest
Chorus
I never get the knocker when the boys shout cock, cockly, cock, cock robin
With my old red vest I mean to cut shine.
Walking down the street, they call me danger on the line.
And the more they call out robin red breast, I'll wear it longer still.
I will have a red waistcoat, I will,
I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.
-snip-
Italics added by me to highlight that line.

****
RELATED WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS:
CUTTING UP [CUTTIN UP] (Usually given as "just cuttin up")
Definition: verb; acting silly, "actin a fool", (meaning purposely acting like a fool.

Example: Read the excerpt about Othar Turner above.

****
CUTTING [THE] MONKEY
Definition #1
(verb) acting silly, acting [like] a fool

From http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/their-eyes-were-watching-god/study-help/full-glossary-for-their-eyes-were-watching-god
All them dat's goin' tuh cut de monkey in other words, if everyone has finished acting silly.
-snip-
From http://poetry.rapgenius.com/Zora-neale-hurston-their-eyes-were-watching-god-chap-16-lyrics

[WARNING - This book includes the n word fully spelled out and colorist language about dark skinned Black people.]

Italics were added by me to highlight that portion.

****
Definition #2
(verb) showing off in front of White people, pandering to White people*

From http://poetry.rapgenius.com/Zora-neale-hurston-their-eyes-were-watching-god-chap-16-lyrics "Zora Neale Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God (Chap. 16)"
"We’se uh mingled people and all of us got black kinfolks as well as yaller kinfolks. How come you so against black?”

“And dey makes me tired. Always laughin’! Dey laughs too much and dey laughs too loud. Always singin’ ol’ n&&&er songs! Always cuttin’ de monkey for white folks."
-snip-
Italics were added by me to highlight that portion.

The second paragraph in this excerpt is spoken by a Black women who is sharing why she doesn't like dark skinned Black people.
-snip-
WARNING: The n word is fully spelled out in this book.

**
This usage is the same as Definition #4 for "cutting monkey shines"
which is found above.

*I believe that the expression about Black people "cutting the monkey" can be connected to, but isn't necessarily integral to the stereotype of Black people as monkeys. Click for information about that old & still current very negative stereotype.

****
ADDENDUM
I'm intrigued by the common usage of the words "cut" and "cuttin" ("cutting") to mean "doing". Examples from Old Time Music are "cuttin monkeyshines" and "cutting a shine" (as well as "cut a shine" from Music Hall songs. "Cut the rug" meaning "to dance" is probably a more familiar, albeit mostly retired example of this use of the word "cut". Here's a comment about that expression:
"The term to "cut a rug" first started to emerge as a slang term for dancing in the 1920s. Use of the phrase persisted well into the 1940s, although the popularity of the term has since faded...

Like most slang, the origins of "cut a rug" as a synonym for dancing are disputed. Several competing theories to explain the idea have been bandied about, but none have been firmly proved. This is often the case with slang, which sometimes seems to catch on overnight..."
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-does-it-mean-to-cut-a-rug.htm
-snip-
It seems likely that this vernacular use of the word "cut" and "cutting" originated with African Americans. And, as the lyrics to "Jump Jim Crow" show, this use of "cut" document, that word was used that way as early as the 1830s. But I don't know why "cuttin" came to be used that way.

****
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

Thank you for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Dink Roberts Biographical Information & Other Online Comments

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a two part series on Black banjo songster Dink Roberts. Part II of this series showcases a video clip of Dink Roberts and presents a partial transcriptions of information about Dink Roberts from the annotated notes from the 1998 compilation album Black Banjo Songsters Of North Carolina And Virginia. Selected information and comments about Dink Roberts from other blogs and websites are also included in that post.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/dink-roberts-roustabout-also-known-as.html for Part I of this series. That post showcases a short video clip of Dink Roberts' performing the song "Roustabout". Dink Roberts called that song "Buffalo". "Roustabout" is also known as "Hop High Lulu", "Hop High Lula Gal", "Lula Girl" and other similar names.

The purpose of this post is to increase awareness and access to information about Dink Roberts.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, and educational purposes. All copyrights remain with their owners.

I believe that it's criminal that to date there's no Wikepedia pagee for Dink Roberts and it's very difficult to find online information about this artist. I don't have the knowledge and skills to post a Wikepedia page about Dink Roberts. I hope that someone with that ability will do so.

****
FEATURED VIDEO: Dink Roberts: Fox Chase / Old Rattler (1983)



AlanLomaxArchive, Uploaded on Feb 27, 2012

"Fox Chase / Old Rattler," interspersed with some floating verses, performed by Dink Roberts. Shot by Alan Lomax and crew at Dink's home in Haw River, North Carolina, late July 1983. For more information about the American Patchwork filmwork, Alan Lomax, and his collections, visit http://culturalequity.org. [03.29.05]

****
NOTES FROM THE 1998 COMPILATION ALBUM BLACK BANJO SONGSTERS OF NORTH CAROLINA AND VIRGINIA [Notes by Cece Conway and Scott Odell.]*
“Everybody plays music’s got a different sound”.

“Born in Chatham County, North Carolina Dink Roberts (1894-1989) learned his early music from Blacks in Alamance County and elsewhere. When he was nine years old his mother died, and he went to live with his uncle George Roberts in Little Texas, a community of light skinned African American folks like Dink. Dink’s father was apparently a White banjo player. Dink’s maternal Black uncle George also played banjo, as well as fiddle, and later guitar, as did many of his eight children who were much older than Dink. He “caught” music from his family and at local events called “gatherings”, “sets”, and “frolics”.

As a young man Dink worked as a tenant farmer near Haw River. He played music for “eight hands around” dances and other events. He said “three nights a week for Blacks, three nights a week for Whites”. Well respected for his playing, Dink “picked up” extra money from White people and once from a visiting circus troupe. In his later years Dink played mostly at home for the listening, dancing, and fun of his wife, Lily, son James, grandson Mike, and visitors.

VISITING
On our first visit Dink Roberts seemed old, wise, and mysterious, and his music jarred us...

We visitors were used to old time string bands with tunes played by fiddlers and banjo and guitar players. Some of Dink’s tunes were fiddle melodies that we recognized, but the music came out a different way. Dink also sang on all of his pieces-even fiddle tunes-and didn’t seem to have names for them. Something didn’t fit. Much later, we would understand that our cultural view didn’t fit. Dink’s tradition originated in Africa and was unfamiliar to us.

Over the years we visited these North Carolina musicians and became friends. Each visit began with the an exchange of gifts-the bringing and sharing of food and drink; then the exchange of music. As the visits progressed we realized Dink’s music was not a sequence of individual pieces or set performances of unalterable texts. Dink created musical visits that were spontaneous, non-stop exchanges with family, friends, and visitors.

Our visits reminded us that Black Banjo songsters did much more than one thing at a time. Dink playfully and sensitively orchestrated each visit from arrival to departure and interacted simultaneously with listeners and banjo...

Dink eventually played for local community events, schools, university programs, and major festivals like the 1976 Winter Folk Festival and the Festival of Eno. The Winter Folk Festival Banjo Workshop provided a fine occasion for Dink’s interactive songster banjo style. He was content when Lily jumped up to dance uninvited in the midst of his and others performances…[For his performance style, see the film Dink: A Pre-Blues Musician, which won best –in-the-show in the first North Carolina Film Festival, 1975”.
-snip-
*These notes are transcribed by Azizi Powell for the purposes indicated earlier in this post.

****
TWO OTHER ONLINE COMMENTS ABOUT DINK ROBERTS
From http://www.allmusic.com/artist/dink-roberts-mn0000217433/biography
Dink Roberts Artist Biography by Eugene Chadbourne
..."Although an old-time music enthusiast such as Conway must have appreciated the link between Roberts and Uncle Dave Macon, her book argues that the black banjo songs of artists such as [Dink] Roberts were a distinct musical genre "governed by its own African-American aesthetic standards." Of course, this argument is also made to help counter the so-called wisdom of the past, in which it was suggested black performers had ripped off this kind of material from whites. (Now there's a switch.) Scholars who seek to avoid racial conflicts have completely established another important element of Roberts' music, in that he was one of the rare banjo players whose style was formed before the fiddle became the dominant force. This aspect of Roberts' musical psyche is called "pre-fiddle exposure." It is easily heard in Roberts' clawhammer banjo style as he alternates ostinato melodic lines in a call and response relation to his vocal, a form of playing considered distinctly African."

****
From http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BlackBanjo/conversations/topics/14193
Re: Dink Roberts Banjo Playing
TonyW
Message 1 of 6 , Mar 17, 2011

..."Certai9nly as noted Lucius Smith of Mississippi who was even older than Dink also played the first string up picking, actually in a more systematic way than Dink did. While Lucius played a few tunes that he called blues in field recordings I have heard of him, he was ready at a moment's notice to launch into a declamation about how the blues had ruined the world in almost every way. He reckoned things had started going down hill when folks stopped asking for Walking in the Parlor and started asking for Handy's Memphis Blues, which would have been around 1913-1914.

I think the key thing is that the process of revivalism has created orthodoxies and schemas about traditional banjo playing that traditional banjoists never observed or even heard of. All kinds of banjo players, white and black, in the tradition occassionally up picked in what was supposed to be down picking.

More of them had styles that combined up picking and down picking. While this is not my area of expertise, styles combining the two, particularly with first finger brushing, resemble the ways some West African lutes are played. Such styule can be observed among white old time banjoists and in 1920s records of Black guitarists.

I should say that Dink was a great blues guitarist and a great slide player. Folk who had the opportunity were concerned with picturing dink as a "pre blues" musician, even though during most of Dink's life the Blues and its offspring were the major vernacular music where he lived and among those whom he lived. He apparrently did not own a guitar any more and apparently believed that in his infirmity he could handle a banjo easier than a guitar.

I have absolutely no doubt that if someone had similarly wanted to type cast dink as a piedmont blues guitar player, or as a slide blues guitar player, rather than a banjoist, we might be discussing a revelation that the famous Piedmont blues guitar player Dink Roberts also played banjo"...

****
My thanks to Dink Roberts for his musical legacy.

Thanks also to the publisher of this video on YouTube and those who are quoted in this post.

Thank you for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Dink Roberts - Roustabout (also known as "Buffalo"), video, lyrics, and comments

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a two part series on Black banjo songster Dink Roberts. This post showcases a short video clip of Dink Roberts' performing the song "Roustabout". Dink Roberts called that song "Buffalo". "Roustabout" is also known as "Hop High Lulu", "Hop High Lula Gal", "Lula Girl" and other similar names.

Part II of this series presents a partial transcriptions of information about Dink Roberts from the annotated notes from the 1998 compilation album Black Banjo Songsters Of North Carolina And Virginia. Selected information and comments about Dink Roberts from other blogs and websites are also included in that post which will be published ASAP.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

****
SHOWCASE VIDEO
Dink Roberts: Roustabout (1983)



AlanLomaxArchive, Uploaded on Feb 17, 2012

A fragment of "Roustabout" sung and played by Dink Roberts. Shot by Alan Lomax and crew at Dink's home in Haw River, North Carolina, late July 1983. For more information about the American Patchwork filmwork, Alan Lomax, and his collections, visit http://culturalequity.org [03.29.01]

****
LYRICS AND COMMENTS
From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=53820
Subject: Lyr Add: ROUSTABOUT
From:Stewie
Date: 24 Nov 02 - 10:33 PM

...Here are the lyrics to Dink Roberts' [1894-1989] version of 'Roustabout':

ROUSTABOUT ("Buffalo")

Where you been?
You - roustabout
Say, when you go a-courtin'
Yea, when you go a-fishin'
Carry a hook and line
Yea, when you go a-courtin'
Court with a willin' mind
Yea, who been here since I been gone?
Little bitty girl with the red dress on

Source: transcription in booklet in Various Artists 'Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia' Smithsonian/Folkways SFCD 40079.

The notes by Cece Conway and Scott Odell to this piece read in part:
Along with 'Coo Coo', this ['Roustabout'] is one of the important showpiece tunes in the black banjo repertory ... This tuning [gCGBD] ... was also used by the earliest minstrels. The song is likely a reminder of the older uses of this tuning that was current when whites first learned the banjo from blacks in the 1830s and later when the 5-string banjo appeared ...

Dink says that he learned this song at age 15 from his family in the Piedmont. He took it with him when he moved to Mt Airy in Surry County to farm and to work on the railroad. The 2-part structure with the striking key change is found in other black versions and also in Fred Cockerham's. An outstanding white banjo player, Fred grew up and lived most of his life in Low Gap, not far from Mt Airy, but did not remember any black musicians in the area; nor is there any indication that he and Dink ever heard each other play. Some black players, including John Tyree and Rufus Kasey, call this tune 'Hop Light' or 'Hop Along Lou', echoing the refrain used in some versions, including Cockerham's. To the best of Fred's memory, Mal Smith brought 'Roustabout' to the area from Virginia in the first quarter of the century and called it 'Long Steel Rail'. The likelihood of a Virginia source is strengthened by the complex and closely related versions of black players Rufus Kasey, Josh Thomas and others from Virginia, many of whom were working on or near the railroads during this same period.[Cece Conway and Scott Odell, pp25-26 in booklet to SFCD 40079]
-snip-
Stewie also wrote that he has an instrumental recording entitled "'Hop Along Lou' by John Tyree. This is another version of the Old Time Music song "Roustabout"/Hop High" etc.

Stewie also includes a transcription of White American banjo/singer Fred Cockerham's version of "Roustabout". It appears that that version [that begins with the words "roustabout, oh roustabout" is the one which is most familiar to most Old Time Music/Bluegrass fans.

****
From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvo1OP1OJ0c [Viewer comment thread for the video embedded in this post.]

Tony Thomas, 2012
"Dink Roberts never called this song Roustabout. He called the tune Buffalo. Folklorists and folk revivalists label this song with that title, but Black players like dink called it either Buffalo or Hoo High or Hop High Lulu, save one I know who called it thus, but after a folklorist told him the song was Roustabout, added a verse from a record and started calling what he had called Hop High Lulu all his life Roustabout."

Reply
AlanLomaxArchive, 2012
"Directly after this performance, Lomax asks Roberts, "What do you call that tune?" He replies: "Oh, 'Roustabout.' "
-snip-
In the portion of the transcribed notes from the album Black Banjo Songsters Of North Carolina And Virginia that are included in Part II of this series there is a comment about Dink Roberts and the titles of the songs he played.

Although those notes don't indicate this, I wonder if Mr. Roberts could have heard that "Roustabout" was the title for this song that White people used and consequently gave the White man [Lomax] the title that he thought that Lomax wanted.

****
My thanks to Dink Roberts for his musical legacy.

Thanks also to the publisher of this video on YouTube and those who are quoted in this post.

Thank you for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Who Was The Lady With The Alligator Purse In The "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" Rhymes?

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a three part pancocojams series on the playground rhyme which is called "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" and other similar titles. In this post I present seven theories about the role played by the lady with the alligator purse in "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhymes.

With two exception, the quoted comments in this post are from two Mudcat Cafe discussion threads about this rhyme. The links to those posts are found below.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/wikepedias-article-about-miss-lucy-had.htmlfor Part I of this series. In that post I critique the Wikipedia article about "Miss Lucy Had A Baby".

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/miss-lucy-had-baby-text-examples-videos.html for Part III of this series. That post features several variant text examples of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby". Two videos of this rhyme are also featured on that post. That post also includes comments about the possible date of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby".

The content of this post is presented for folkloric and sociological purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

WARNING: Some of the content of this post might be considered inappropriate for young children.

PART II
A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE OF "MISS LUCY HAD A BABY"
Miss Molly had a baby,
The baby's name was Tim,
She put him in a bathtub,
To see if he could swim.
He ate up all the water,
He drank up all the soap,
He woulda ate the bathtub but it wouldn't fit his throat!
Miss Molly called the doctor,
Miss Molly called the nurse,
Miss Molly called the lady with the alligator purse!
Measles said the doctor,
Measles said the nurse,
Pizza said the lady with the alligator purse!
Miss Molly shot the doctor,
Miss Molly stabbed the nurse,
Miss Molly paid the lady with the alligator purse!
-Guest, http://www.mudcat.org/threads.cfm "Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, I Bit the Teacher's Toe!"; April 13, 2005

****
THEORIES ABOUT THE IDENTITY & ROLE OF THE LADY WITH THE ALLIGATOR PURSE IN "MISS LUCY HAD A BABY" RHYMES
Note: There are LOTS of different examples of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby". In some of those examples the woman who had a baby is named "Susie" or "Molly" or another female name. In other examples of this rhyme the baby who almost drowns in the bathtub is the brother of the person who is voicing the words of the rhyme. Furthermore, there are other examples of this rhyme in which the "baby" isn't a person but a puppy or a turtle. Other similarities & differences between versions of this rhyme are discussed in Part II of this series.

I'm assigning numbers to those quotes for referencing purposes, although they aren't placed in any order of preference - except that I've assigned my theory about this rhyme as #1 ;o)

1. Alligator Purse Carried By A Herbalist or Another Non-Establishment Health Practitioner
Here's a comment that I wrote on this Mudcat discussion thread:
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=90418
"Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Kids' songs: Miss Mary Mack & Miss L [hereafter given as Mudcat: Miss Mary Mack & Miss Lucy]

From: Azizi
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 08:04 AM

"I am STILL trying to track down the meaning of reference to "alligator' in the "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" children's rhymes:

Miss Lucy called the Doctor
The doctor called the Nurse
The Nurse called the Lady with the Alligator Purse!

By happen chance I was reading a paperback historical romantic novel-yes I do read these sometimes :O)

And there was mention of a woman who was a herbalist who put her things in an alligator purse when she went to visit someone who was sick..I assumed that "alligator purse" meant a purse made out of alligator skin.

Could it be that an alligator purse was the 'signature' of an herbalist way back when? This would fit well with the central theme of Miss Lucy calling people associated with health care to help her with her baby who almost drowned.

BTW, Iona & Peter Opie mention what they call the strange reference in the USA to "the lady with the alligator purse' in this "Miss Lucy had a baby" rhyme but give no explanation of its origin or meaning.

I remember saying the alligator purse line during my childhood in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the 1950s."...
-snip-
This comment was also posted in 2005 on the Mudcat discussion thread http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=90418 "Folklore: Lady's alligator purse? Her own thread". That thread is hereafter given as "Mudcat: Alligator Purse".

Clearly Miss Lucy called one person after another to help treat her baby. When the doctor didn't give the right diagnose -or the diagnosis she wanted to hear- Miss Lucy called the nurse. And when the nurse didn't give the diagnosis Miss Lucy wanted to hear, Miss Lucy called the nurse. In most of the examples I've come across the doctor and the nurse didn't recommend the treatment that Miss Lucy wanted to hear, but she was happy with the treatment reecommended by the lady with the alligator purse.

My theory is that this rhyme differentiates between "establishment" healthcare practitioners [the doctor and the nurse] and the non-establishment health care practitioner [the lady with the alligator purse].

It's tempting to wonder if in the days when this rhyme was first composed* people trusted non-traditional health practitioners more than they did establishment health practitioners. Could this rhyme be a reflection of the concerns people had that doctors or nurses were trying to diagnosis serious conditions when the person feeling sick really wasn't that ill?

Some contemporary examples of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" include the line "Pizza! Said the lady with the alligator purse". The doctor in the 19th century song "Shortnin Bread" also recommends food for ailing children:
Three little children, lyin' in bed
Two was sick and the other 'most dead
Sent for the doctor and the doctor said,
"Feed those children on shortnin' bread."

Could the "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhymes reflect the suspicions of those times that doctors & nurses were trying to rip "common people" off, charging them money for medicine and treatment when all that the person needed was food?

Or could this rhyme reflect the desire that people have to minimize any illness they or their loved ones have, and/or reflect the desire that people have to hear that nothing is really wrong with them or their loved ones who appear to be ill. If "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhymes were first composed during epidemics of Diptheria as alluded to in "the bubble in the throat" phrase, people would certainly want to hear that their loved ones had nothing wrong with them rather than to hear that their loved ones had that once deadly disease.

*I haven't yet found any exact date for the earliest documented "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhyme. However, exaiming "Miss Lucy Had A Baby's sister rhyme "Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat" may provide clues about the probably dates for both of those rhymes. For instance,the line in "Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat" that goes "Hello Operator, give me #9" suggest that this rhyme was composed between 1878 and the 1920s as the 1920s was when direct dial telephones began in the United States. And since the steamboat era was in the later half of the 19th century, that fact also helps date the "Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat" rhymes.

Furthermore, 1902 is firmly established as the date of the earliest documented example of "Bang Bang Lulu" [which is "Miss Lucy Had A Baby"'s and "Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat"'s "brother song"]. That date is well documented because one "Bang Bang Lulu" verse was included in the Western novel The Virginians which was published in 1902. Because the numerous "Lulu"/"Lula" songs are clearly the core source of those above mentioned rhymes & song, the 1870s or so composition dates also help calculate probable dates for those two playground rhymes.

The Diptheria epidemics in the United States which occured in the the late 1880s and the early 1900s might also have sparked the composition of the "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhymes.

More comments about the possible earliest date for "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" are found in Part III of this pancocojams series. More comments about the earliest dates for the composition of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" can be found in this pancocojams post: http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/similarities-differences-between-bang.html "Similarities & Differences Between "Bang Bang Lulu" & "Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat".

2. Alligator Purse Routinely Carried By Social Workers
This is the position that appears to be held by the author of the Wikipedia article about "Miss Lucy Had A Baby". I strongly disagree with most of that article, including the theory that the lady with the alligator purse is a social worker. Here are the reasons why I don't agree with that theory:
a. In "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhymes, the people are called to the home to diagnosis and physically attend to a person who is in physical distress. That isn't why social workers are called to a home. In many cases, social workers [or "child welfare workers"] come uninvited to a home to investigate alleged child neglect and/or child abuse.

b. In many examples of this rhyme, "Miss Lucy" treats the lady with the alligator purse better than she treats the doctor and the nurse. However, in most communities if a doctor or nurse came to a home, they would likely be treated with much more deference and respect than treatment social workers investigating alleged child abuse or child neglect would be treated. Those social workers are likely to be treated with suspicion and hopefully contained hostility. This isn't how the lady with the alligator purse is treated in those rhymes.

c. To date, I've not found any online documentation that social workers in the past or the present routinely carrying alligator bags as part of their professional "uniform". The two citations that were included in the above linked Wikipedia article are weak sources for reasons I indicated in Part I of this series.

3. Just A Woman Carrying A Purse; That word is used just for rhyming purposes

[Mudcat: Alligator Purse]
From:GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Apr 06 - 12:55 PM

"Well, if you've ever tried to compose anything that rhymed, you've probably noticed that it's hard work. So here we have a bunch of kids trying to rhyme something with nurse. How many words rhyme with nurse? Not many.

purse
worse
disburse
disperse
curse
hearse
terse
verse

That's all I can think of. Now look at the list and see how many words can fit into a list of people (doctor - nurse - disburse? No.) Factor in the need for rhythm, and an alligator purse is just the ticket."
**
[Mudcat: Alligator Purse]
From:Azizi
Date: 10 Apr 06 - 05:02 PM

"But why an alligator purse?

Why don't these rhymes have any other type of purse or description of purses?

I don't know ,leeneia. Your explanation sounds too reasonable.

Maybe that's why it doesn't feel right to me.

[and you can read into that all you want, and you'd probably be right on the money]."

4. The Alligator Purse As Representative of American activist Susan B. Anthony
[Mudcat: Alligator Purse]
From:GUEST,Nancy Silverrod
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 12:30 PM

"I have been trying to verify a claim that the lady with the alligator purse was suffragist Susan B. Anthony who supposedly carried her speeches with her in an alligator purse. The claim is that this dates back to the California woman suffrage campaign of 1896, and that the last line is "Vote! said the lady with the alligator purse."

I have found this ending among the many variations, but, so far, nothing to link it to Susan B. Anthony"....
-snip-
For what it's worth, unlike this commenter, I've not found any examples of this rhyme with the line "Vote! said the lady with the alligator purse." And there doesn't appear to be any other documentation of this theory apart from The Susan B. Anthony House.
-snip-
Here's that comment from The Susan B. Anthony House http://susanbanthonyhouse.org/blog/alligator-purse-rhyme/
"The traveling champion of the women’s rights movement, Susan B. Anthony, was recognized by two trademarks: her red shawl and her alligator “purse.” You can see the famous alligator bag she carried across the United States and to Europe when you visit the Susan B. Anthony House at 17 Madison Street in Rochester, NY. You may recognize this children’s jump-rope rhyme that was recorded by the press when Anthony was campaigning for suffrage in California:

Miss Lulu had a baby, she called him tiny Tim.
She put him in the bathtub, so see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water! He ate up all the soap!
He tried to swallow the bathtub, but it wouldn’t go down his throat!!
Call for the doctor!
Call for the nurse!
Call for the lady with the alligator purse!
“Mumps!” said the doctor. “Measles!” said the nurse.
“Vote!!” said the lady with the alligator purse!!

Anthony used her alligator bag more like a briefcase or backpack than like a purse. In it, she carried her speeches and pamphlets, a copy of the transcript from her 1873 trial in which she was found guilty for having voted “illegally” in the 1872 federal election."
-snip-
It just occured to me that if there really is a 1873 newspaper article that includes this example of "Miss Lulu had a baby" then this would be the earliest documented version of that rhyme. As I wrote as a guest posting on that discussion thread in 2012:
"It might have been a coincidence that Susan B. Anthony's purse was made of alligator skin and there was a pre-existing line in a playground rhyme about "a lady with the alligator purse". And some enterprising, creative reporter could have made up the "vote said the lady with the alligator purse" version. Indeed, I think it's likely that that is what happened."

I'd love to know the name, date, and page number of that newspaper article that included an example of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" AND included a reference to the "lady with the alligator purse".
-snip-
Hat tip to Jon Corelis for his comments in that Mudcat post which questioned the connections between "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhymes and Susan B. Anthony.

5. The Alligator Purse As A Rich Woman's Accessory
[Mudcat: Miss Mary Mack & Miss Lucy]
From: CapriUni
Date: 19 Oct 10 - 04:56 PM

..."As I understand it, shoes (for men) and purses (for women) made from alligator leather were such a status symbol of wealth that it actually contributed to alligators being endangered -- much like ostrich plumes in ladies' hats.

I don't know if there were any magic or symbolic connection between alligators and herbalism, but it might be a clue that the herbalist in question was making a lot of money off her business, and that she wasn't just doing it out of the charity of her heart"...
-snip-
That theory doesn't explain how & why "Miss Lucy" knew to call the rich woman and why the woman was called came to the home to help the baby. However, here's a similar comment:

[Mudcat: Alligator Purse]
From:GUEST,Grishka
Date: 27 Feb 11 - 04:38 PM

What about the alligator purse being an attribute of wealth: expensive, fashionable, and presumably well-filled with cash? The child would be malnourished rather than ill, so that the philantropic rich lady is the only one who can help. "Pizza" has probably been patched in later, but may nevertheless convey the original meaning. Now you may ask why in some versions she is being paid instead of paying - that must be corruption (not of social welfare workers, but of folk verses).

Just a completely uneducated theory."

6.[Mudcat: Alligator Purse] UPDATE 10/16/2013
From:Jon Corelis
Date: 13 Mar 12 - 10:56 AM

I know this is an old thread, but since there's been continuing interest in it, I thought I'd add one piece of information which a search indicates hasn't been included before.

The rhyme occurs at a significant place in Alfred Hitchcock's film Marnie, where a group of girls skipping rope chants it in the following form:

"Mother, Mother, I am ill.
Send for the doctor over the hill.
Call for the doctor.
Call for the nurse.
Call for the lady
with the alligator purse.
Mumps said the doctor.
Measles said the nurse.
Nothing said the lady
with the alligator purse."

The lady, I think, is death.
-snip-
I disagreed with this commenter in that discussion thread & still disagree because in many examples of this rhyme that I have read, including the one given above, the lady with the alligator purse indicates that there's nothing wrong with the baby or recommends some beneficial treatment [such as "Pizza! said the lady with thee alligator purse".

7. A Woman Who Just Happened To Have An Alligator Purse
Maybe this lady was a neighbor of Miss Lucy's. Maybe she had all differnt types of purses, and just happened to carry her purse made out of alligator skin that day wheen she came to that house in response to Miss Lucy's call.

Although alligator purses were considered fashion accessories by wealthy women, maybe that woman in this rhyme wasn't rich. She could have received that purse from someone who caught that alligator, skinned it, and made that purse, and gave it to her as a gift. Maybe the lady with the alligator purse collected anything associated with alligators and had numerous replicas of alligators all throughout her house. Maybe she was known as "the alligator lady" throuhout her neighborhood. Maybe she also was the one who neighbors called when they needed help.

Maybe that's all that rhyme is about.

***
UPDATE: 10/16/2013
Here's a comment and examples from http://www.playgroundjungle.com/2009/12/how-miss-susie-and-tiny-tim-got-cleaner.html "How Miss Suzie and Tiny Tim got clean(er)"
..."Miss Suzie had a baby
she named it tiny Tim
she put it in the bathtub
to see if he could swim
he ate up all the water
he drank up all the soap
now he's home, sick in bed
with a frog in his throat.
She called for the doctor
she called for the nurse
she called for the lady with the alligator purse
mumps, said the doctor
mumps, said the nurse
nothing, said the lady with the alligator purse

"[There are] Plenty of variations of this [line from "Miss Lucy Had A Baby"] such as "he tried to eat the bathtub, but it wouldn't fit his throat." It's been sung in about that way since at least the 1920s in England, but it's actually a variation of a whole series of bawdy drinking songs about a prostitute name Lulu, according to Iona Opie's "The Singing Game." She sites one particular version:

Lulu had a baby, which was an awful shock
she couldn't call it Lulu cause the bastard had a____

You can guess the last word. By the 1920s, it had morphed into a rhyme set-up not unlike the "Steamboat" song:

Lulu Had a baby, she named it sunny Jim
she took it to the bathroom to see if it could swim
it swam to the bottom, it swam to the top
Lulu got excited, and grabbed it by the
cocktails, ginger ale, two and six a glass....

By the 1950s, the lady with the alligator purse was showing up in versions of the song. The "cocktails" line was still being recorded in England in 1950s, and in New York in the late 1970s, though in the states it morphed to "two bits a glass"...
By the 1950s, the lady with the alligator purse was showing up in versions of the song. The "cocktails" line was still being recorded in England in 1950s, and in New York in the late 1970s, though in the states it morphed to "two bits a glass"...
-end of quote-
If it's true that the lady with the alligator purse didn't show up in "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" until the 1950s, maybe those purses were a fashion statement during that time. I was a child in the 1950s, but I can't remember any fashion trends -except patent leather Mary Jane shoes for girls.

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My thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

Thank you for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Wikipedia's Article About "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" Is A BIG Fail

Edited by Azizi Powell

[Editor's comments was slightly revised onDecember 28, 2018.

Note that the Wikipedia article on "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" that I read on December 28, 2018 isn't the same as the page that I'm critiquing in this pancocojams post. For example, the December 28, 2018 version doesn't include what I believe is an erroneous statement that "Miss Lucy" (similar to Miss Suzy), is the name of an American schoolyard rhyme and clapping game in which emancipated African American culture is mocked."

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This is Part I of a three part series on the playground rhyme which is called "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" and other similar titles. In this post I critique the Wikipedia article about "Miss Lucy Had A Baby".

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/who-was-lady-in-alligator-purse.html for Part II of this series. In Part II I present five theories about the role played by the lady with the alligator purse in "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhymes. Comments from two Mudcat Cafe discussion threads about this rhyme are reposted to present these theories.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/miss-lucy-had-baby-text-examples-videos.html for Part III of this series. That post features several variant text examples of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby". Two videos of this rhyme are also featured on this post. That post also includes comments about the possible date of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby".

PART I
This post serves as a critique of the Wikipedia article on "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" that I read on October 14, 2013. All quotes from that article were retrieved on that date. Note that I'm aware from a comment in a box which prefaces that Wikipedia article dated June 2013 that "This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed."

I've chosen to write this blog post rather than using the format Wikipedia presents, partly because I prefer writing on this blog and partly because I tried but can't figure out Wikipedia's format for critiquing and suggesting changes in existing articles.

Prior to beginning this critique, I'm showcasing a rather "standard" example of "Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat".

The content of this post is presented for folkloric and sociological purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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EXAMPLE OF "MISS LUCY HAD A BABY"
Note: There are LOTS of different examples of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby". In some of those examples the woman who had a baby is named "Susie" or "Molly" or another female name. In other examples of this rhyme the baby who almost drowns in the bathtub is the brother of the person who is voicing the words of the rhyme. Furthermore, there are other examples of this rhyme in which the "baby" isn't a person but a puppy. Other similarities & differences between versions of this rhyme are discussed in Part II of this series.

Here's one text example of this rhyme from http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081031194743AAQf7oV "Miss Susie had a baby..." How does the song/rhyme go?".
Miss Susie had a bady She named him Tiny Tim
She put him in a bathtub To see if he could swim
He drank up all the water He ate up all the soap
He tried to eat the bathtub But it wouldn't fit down his throat
Miss Lucy called the doctor
The Doctor call the nurse
The Nurse called the lady
With the alligator purse.
In walked the doctor.
In walked the nurse
In walked the lady
With the alligator purse.
"Measles," said the doctor.
"Mumps," said the nurse.
"Nothing," said the lady
With the alligator purse.
Miss Lucy kicked the doctor.
Miss Lucy punched the nurse.
Miss Lucy paid the lady
With the alligator purse.
-Chyna114, 2008
-snip-
That page features additional examples of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" and examples of "Miss Susie Had A Steamboat". The playground rhymes "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" and "Miss Susie Had A Steamboat" both come from the same "Lula Gal" Old Time Music sources. Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/grayson-and-whitter-shout-lula-example.html for my comment about the sources for those playground rhymes.

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EDITORIAL COMMENTS
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Lucy_had_a_baby

The statements from that article are presented in italics and my comments about those quotes are presented below those particular quotes. I'm assigning numbers to those quotes for referencing purposes.

1."Miss Lucy" (similar to Miss Suzy), is the name of an American schoolyard rhyme and clapping game in which emancipated African American culture is mocked.

I assume that by "emancipated African American culture" the author of this article means the way African Americans lived post-United States slavery. The author doesn't explain how this rhyme mocks post-African American culture/s [note my plural and the author's use of singular with its assumption that there is only one African American cultural experience].

2. The mother's name is Miss Lucy. So she is not married but has a baby.

The author of this page assumes that the woman who had a baby in that rhyme had to a single mother because the title "Miss" prefaces her name. My position is that the title "Miss" was used out of respect to & for young girls and/or young women.

Note that "Miss Mary Mack" is another very widely known playground rhyme in which a title almost always prefaces the female name. The fact that in that rhyme "Miss Mary Mack" asks her mother for 15 cents [or 50 cents] substantiates my position that the title "Miss" prefaced the names of young girls.

Historically, an alternative theory could be offerred that the title "Miss" in this rhyme refers to a White girl or a White woman.

Prior to the end of slavery in the USA in the Southern regions of that country, the titles "Miss" and "Mr" were reserved for White people only. Instead, of those titles, "Aunt" and "Uncle" were used for old & [somewhat] respected Black folks. Examples of that usage are "Uncle Remus" [folktales], "Uncle Ben's" [These are still brand names for rice products] and "Aunt Jemima" [These are still brand names for pancake mix products and syrup products].

Also note that the title "Miss" was used during the 19th century if not earlier by Black folks if not by other people as a referent not just for young White women-married or unmarried-but also for young White girls. The referents "Little Miss" and "Young Missy" permeate fiction and non-fiction writings about the "Old South".

However, I believe that these Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhymes are of post-emancipation origin, perhaps as late as the 1940s or 1950s*. Because of that, my bet is on the first explanation that I gave for the title "Miss".
*I've not yet been able to find any documentation of when these "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhymes were first chanted.
I believe that this rhyme originated among African Americans, as is the case with the other songs & rhyme examples from the same "Lula Gal" sources. Because enslaved Black people rarely had access to doctors or nurses, and particularly not at their homes as is described in the story line of these "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhymes, the conclusion can logically be reached that these rhymes were of post-emancipation origin.

And if the words of these rhymes originally reflected people's anxiety about Diptheria epidemics in the United States, then the dates of those post-emancipation epidemics would help pinpoint probable early dates for these rhymes. That would put that rhyme's composition between the late 1880s and the early 1900s.
http://library.thinkquest.org/11170/epidemics/diphtheria.htmlprovides the information that "In the late 1800's, diphtheria epidemics spread throughout the United States and Europe until 1920, when a vaccine was developed.

Also, the line in "Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat" that goes "Hello Operator, give me #9" suggest that this rhyme was composed between 1878 and the 1920s as the 1920s was when direct dial telephones began in the United States.

And since the steamboat era was in the later half of the 19th century, that fact also helps date the "Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat" rhymes.

3.The name [Lucy] is typical to that of a young slave woman of African origin...

Tiny Tim as 'Miss Lucy' also mocks the African American short common names, such as Jim (the slave in Tom Sawyer) and Tom (in Uncle Tom's Cabin).

These statements are so simplistic that I believe that they don't deserve any comment.

4. Miss Lucy call's the "white" team, consisting of the Doctor, Nurse, and Social worker, with the "alligator purse".[5]

First of all, Black people and other People of Color were and are doctors, nurses, and social workers. It's racist to call those professionals "the 'white' team".

In my theory about the meaning of "the lady with the alligator purse", I differentiate between the "establishment" healthcare practitioners [the doctor and the nurse] and the non-establishment health care practitioner [the lady with the alligator purse]. I'm not sure if this is what the author of that Wikipedia article meant by what I consider to be her [or his] problematic and socially incorrect [as in "politically incorrect"] description of these characters.

The citation #5 that is given in this quote is from a lecture entitled "How not to appear as a social workerat the Australian College of Social Work". While a few lines from "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" are quoted, unless I missed it, those lines were given as examples of child neglect and abuse [??] and only [to me] obliquely referred to social workers carrying alligator purses.

Visit Part II of this series for more comments about the depiction of these three characters. Also, read quote #5 below...

5. An alligator purse was typical dress code for the social worker in the 1950s[6]

The citation given as #6 in that Wikipedia article is "Take me to Connie [sic] Island", Miriam Packer, Guernica Editions, 1993, Page 35.
I believe this book whose title is actually Take Me To Coney Island is fiction. I've read the page that was indicated via Google Books. That page includes a description of "Miss Robb...all clothed in professsional garb-dark velvet suit, alligator purse and shoes, Italian scarf with impressionist images of birds in flight"....

Having been a child welfare caseworker & supervisor for 15 years and a social services director at a residential facility for homeless women & children for three years [all in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area], I know a thing or two about how social workers dress. That book's description of that attire isn't even close. Furthermore, to date, I've not found any other online descriptions of social workers in the past or the present routinely carrying alligator bags as part of their professional "uniform".

Also, read my comments immediately below about citation #7 in that Wikipedia article.

6. According to folklore, bubbles stuck in the babies throat may refer to symptoms of Black Diphtheria, and the bathtub is a version changed for children.[7]

7. [This portion of this post include slight revisions for grammatical purposes made on December 28, 2018.]
Citation #7 is given as a "discussion on the folklore of the Miss Lucy rhyme". That link leads to http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=90418 "Folklore: Lady's alligator purse? Her own thread".

I'm very much familiar with that discussion as I posted more comments on that discussion thread than any other participant. Furthermore, as a once very active member of that discussion forum, I'm aware of the race of the other members who posted comments on that thread. I know that all of the participants in that discussion -except for me-are White [I'm African American]*. This is pertinent because, given her/his conclusions in this article, I gather that the author of the Wikipedia page erroneously assumed that both of the commenters who mentioned social workers in regards to that "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" rhyme were African American. However, for the record, both of these commenters were White men:
GUEST,Neighmond [Chaz]* Date: 10 Apr 06 - 02:03 AM wrote "We always thought the lady with the aligator purse was the social worker!"
*Chaz was writing as a Guest because he hadn't logged in, but he was [and maybe still is] a member of that forum.

M Ted wrote on 21 Apr 06 - 06:06 PM "My neighborhood was not one of the better ones, and we knew the lady with the alligator purse to be a social worker,because wherever misfortune visited, she followed".

In that discussion thread I presented my theory that the lady with the alligator purse was a herbalist or some other non-traditional health care provider. In Part II of this series read more about this theory as well as my comments challenging both Chaz's and M. Ted's implications about how social workers are considered and interacted with when they arrive as investigators at homes in Black communities or any other communities.

Click http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=90418 for another Mudcat post that partly focuses on examples of "Miss Lucy Had A Baby". I also participated in that discussion.

**
8.In some versions Miss Lucy acts violently to the doctor and nurse's prognosis, but pays the alligator purse lady for nothing.
I generally agree with this description.

*Pancocojams Editor's Comment About Mudcat Cafe's Discussion Forum
I'm including the following information about Mudcat Cafe although some may consider this to be off topic . However, I believe this information is pertinent in general terms and because it appears to me that the Wikipedia author of the article about "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" assumed that Black people were the ones who mentioned that as children they thought that the lady with the alligator purse was a social worker. So for the public record and because I believe that it is important to document & share as much demographical information as possible including race for folkloric products [which also describes online blog posts and discussions], let me take this time to indicate the following:

Although Mudcat Cafe was & is a Folk & Blues forum, most of the music discussions have been and continue to be about folk music from White Europeans [This isn't redundent.] and White Americans. And while Mudcat excels in discussions about Old Time Music and early Blues, it's participants rarely discuss other forms of Blues and other folk music originating from & largely performed by People of Color. Also, while there were discussion threads on playground rhymes prior to my participation at Mudcat, the record shows that I spearheaded those discussions during the five years that I was an active member of that forum.

When I was active with that forum most Mudcat members were males & females fifty years & older who came from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia in that order. Some other Mudcaters came from Germany, New Zealand, and a few other European nations.

During the years that I was active with Mudcat Cafe -from August 2004 to November 2009- there was only three other publicly acknowledged People of Color who were members of that forum - a Japanese man, a woman who was a Koori [an indigenous person] from a particular region of Australia, and a Black man from Ghana who I recruited to that forum & who unfortunately was only active there for a very short time. None of those persons commented on either one of the Mudcat discussion threads that I linked to in this post.

I'm sure that a small percentage of people who have posted and posts as non-members ["Guests"] on that forum were/are People of Color, although few Guests gave that demographical information.

Lastly, it appears to me since 2009 to date my description of the membership & Guest demographics for that forum remains the same.

NOTE FOR THE RECORD: I've posted a link to this pancocojams post and these comments about that forum in the Mudcat thread to which the Wikipedia author hyperlinked & whose link I provided in this pancocojams blog post.

**
With regard to the author's statement about "Black Diptheria", I agree that this rhyme's references to the baby having a "bubble in his throat" refers to Diptheria but wonder why the author referred to that disease as "Black Diptheria.

Additional comments about the early purpose of the "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" are found in Part II of this series.

Visit Part II and Part III of this pancocojams series for examples & comments about how the lady with the alligator purse is treated differently than the way the doctor and nurse are treated.

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RELATED LINKS
I believe that "Miss Lucy Had A Baby" can be partly traced to Old Time Music songs such as "Shout Lula". Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/10/reeltime-travelers-shout-lula-example.html for an example of "Shout Lula".

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My thanks to all those who are quoted in this post, including the author of that Wikipedia article.

Thank you for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.