Follow the Drinking Gourd song

[Joel Bresler]

James A. Landau wrote:

>If the song does contain "a coded escape route from the south for fleeing
>slaves", then it must have been sung among slaves in a very limited
>geographical area, as moving a few miles east or west would make the coded
>references meaningless.

Please see http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/planetarium/ftdg1.htm among other
places on the web for an explanation of the song. Note that the lyrics
"decoded" there are not the originals, but rather those of Lee Hays of the
Weavers. The route supposedly starts with the quite substantial Tombigbee
River, a landmark that many slaves from a large surrounding area might have
known how to reach.

>This perhaps explains why no one other than H. B. Parks ever heard the
>song---being restricted to a single stream valley, it simply never had
>wide distribution.

Parks claimed to have heard the song in locations over a 1,000 miles apart,
and quite far afield from the Mobile, AL starting point that the
instructions center on. So if that's accurate, the song would have had to
have spread over thousands of square miles.

<snip>

>If the lyrics are directions, they are hardly "coded" but are quite clear.
>But they are also quite incomplete. How does the runaway slave recognize the
>"ole man"? Is he white or black?

See explanation, above. As for completeness, you could well be right. Parks
wrote: "The Negro at College Station said that the song had many verses
which he could not remember. He quoted a number which, either by fault of
memory or secret meaning, are unintelligible and are omitted."

<snip>

Jonathan Lighter wrote:

<snip>

>The celebrity that the song has gained since its initial publication
>proves the power of the operative notion, as well as the appeal of the
>idea of supposedly "ignorant" slaves freely communicating detailed secret
>info under the noses of  the obtuse, unsuspecting massas, who, one
>imagines, might even be tapping their toes absent-mindedly to the engaging
>melodies! What a scene for a postbellum drama!
>
>JL

Please note that the lyrics universally performed today (see URL above) are
_extremely_ unlikely to have been sung by slaves. Any talk or singing
about  "freedom" led quickly to incarceration, a beating or worse. There
are many documented cases of slaves singing spirituals whose lyrics "went
too far" and paid a high price.

Thank you both for your comments. I am quite eager to know what list
members make of the dialect in the Parks song -- does it sound plausible?
Contrived?  Or is this just likely to be an unfruitful line of inquiry for me?

Best,

Joel Bresler

250 E. Emerson Rd.
Lexington, MA 02420
USA

781-862-4104 (Telephone & FAX)
joel.br at verizon.net