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Cotton-Eyed Joe
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Cotton-Eyed Joe
"Cotton-Eyed Joe" (also known as "Cotton-Eye Joe") (Roud 942) is a traditional American country folk song popular at various times throughout the United States and Canada. The song is also an instrumental banjo and bluegrass fiddle standard.
"Cotton-Eyed Joe" has inspired more than one country-western partner dance and line dance. The 1980 film Urban Cowboy included a version of the song. In 1985, the Moody Brothers' version of the song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Country Instrumental Performance. The Irish group the Chieftains received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Vocal Collaboration for their version of the song with lead vocals by Ricky Skaggs on their 1992 album Another Country. In 1994, a version recorded by the Swedish Eurodance group Rednex as "Cotton Eye Joe" became popular worldwide.
The origins of this song are unclear, although it predates the 1861–1865 American Civil War. American folklorist Dorothy Scarborough (1878–1935) noted in her 1925 book On the Trail of Negro Folk-songs that several people remembered hearing the song before the war. Scarborough's account of the song came from her sister, Mrs. George Scarborough, who learned the song from "the Negroes on a plantation in Texas, and other parts from a man in Louisiana". The man in Louisiana knew the song from his earliest childhood and heard slaves singing it on plantations. Both the dance and the song had many variants.
The melody of the song may have originated in Ireland. Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains was on tour in Texas when he heard the song and immediately identified it as an old Irish folk melody, "The Mountain Top".
A number of possible meanings of the term "cotton-eyed" have been proposed. The phrase may refer to: being drunk on moonshine, or having been blinded by drinking wood alcohol, turning the eyes milky white; a black person with very light blue eyes; miners covered in dirt with the exception of their white eyes; someone whose eyes were milky white from bacterial infections of trachoma or syphilis, cataracts or glaucoma; or the contrast of dark skin tone around white eyeballs in black people.
American publishing house Harper and Brothers published the first printed version of the song in 1882. It was heard by author Louise Clarke Pyrnelle (born 1850) on the Alabama plantation of her father when she was a child. That 1882 version was republished as follows in 1910:
Cotton-eyed Joe, Cotton-eyed Joe,
What did make you sarve me so,
Fur ter take my gal erway fum me,
An' cyar her plum ter Tennessee?
Ef it hadn't ben fur Cotton-eyed Joe,
I'd er been married long ergo.
His eyes wuz crossed, an' his nose wuz flat,
An' his teef wuz out, but wat uv dat?
Fur he wuz tall, an' he wuz slim,
An' so my gal she follered him.
Ef it hadn't ben fur Cotton-eyed Joe,
I'd er been married long ergo.
No gal so hansum could be foun',
Not in all dis country roun',
Wid her kinky head, an' her eyes so bright,
Wid her lips so red an' her teef so white.
Ef it hadn't ben fur Cotton-eyed Joe,
I'd been married long ergo.
An' I loved dat gal wid all my heart,
An' she swo' fum me she'd never part;
But den wid Joe she runned away,
An' lef' me hyear fur ter weep all day.
O Cotton-eyed Joe, O Cotton-eyed Joe,
What did make you sarve me so?
O Joe, ef it hadn't er ben fur you,
I'd er married dat gal fur true.
The lyrics of this version, in non-dialectal standard American English are:
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Cotton-Eyed Joe
"Cotton-Eyed Joe" (also known as "Cotton-Eye Joe") (Roud 942) is a traditional American country folk song popular at various times throughout the United States and Canada. The song is also an instrumental banjo and bluegrass fiddle standard.
"Cotton-Eyed Joe" has inspired more than one country-western partner dance and line dance. The 1980 film Urban Cowboy included a version of the song. In 1985, the Moody Brothers' version of the song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Country Instrumental Performance. The Irish group the Chieftains received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Vocal Collaboration for their version of the song with lead vocals by Ricky Skaggs on their 1992 album Another Country. In 1994, a version recorded by the Swedish Eurodance group Rednex as "Cotton Eye Joe" became popular worldwide.
The origins of this song are unclear, although it predates the 1861–1865 American Civil War. American folklorist Dorothy Scarborough (1878–1935) noted in her 1925 book On the Trail of Negro Folk-songs that several people remembered hearing the song before the war. Scarborough's account of the song came from her sister, Mrs. George Scarborough, who learned the song from "the Negroes on a plantation in Texas, and other parts from a man in Louisiana". The man in Louisiana knew the song from his earliest childhood and heard slaves singing it on plantations. Both the dance and the song had many variants.
The melody of the song may have originated in Ireland. Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains was on tour in Texas when he heard the song and immediately identified it as an old Irish folk melody, "The Mountain Top".
A number of possible meanings of the term "cotton-eyed" have been proposed. The phrase may refer to: being drunk on moonshine, or having been blinded by drinking wood alcohol, turning the eyes milky white; a black person with very light blue eyes; miners covered in dirt with the exception of their white eyes; someone whose eyes were milky white from bacterial infections of trachoma or syphilis, cataracts or glaucoma; or the contrast of dark skin tone around white eyeballs in black people.
American publishing house Harper and Brothers published the first printed version of the song in 1882. It was heard by author Louise Clarke Pyrnelle (born 1850) on the Alabama plantation of her father when she was a child. That 1882 version was republished as follows in 1910:
Cotton-eyed Joe, Cotton-eyed Joe,
What did make you sarve me so,
Fur ter take my gal erway fum me,
An' cyar her plum ter Tennessee?
Ef it hadn't ben fur Cotton-eyed Joe,
I'd er been married long ergo.
His eyes wuz crossed, an' his nose wuz flat,
An' his teef wuz out, but wat uv dat?
Fur he wuz tall, an' he wuz slim,
An' so my gal she follered him.
Ef it hadn't ben fur Cotton-eyed Joe,
I'd er been married long ergo.
No gal so hansum could be foun',
Not in all dis country roun',
Wid her kinky head, an' her eyes so bright,
Wid her lips so red an' her teef so white.
Ef it hadn't ben fur Cotton-eyed Joe,
I'd been married long ergo.
An' I loved dat gal wid all my heart,
An' she swo' fum me she'd never part;
But den wid Joe she runned away,
An' lef' me hyear fur ter weep all day.
O Cotton-eyed Joe, O Cotton-eyed Joe,
What did make you sarve me so?
O Joe, ef it hadn't er ben fur you,
I'd er married dat gal fur true.
The lyrics of this version, in non-dialectal standard American English are: