Owasippe - Troop 149, McHenry, IL

Page 30
History (Americana) Folk Songs
Battle of New Orleans
CHORUS
We fired our guns and the British kept a comin’;
There wasn’t quite as many as there was a while ago;
We fired once more and they began, a runnin’;
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
1. In 1814 we took a little trip
along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip’.
We took a little bacon n’ we took a little beans,
And we fought the bloody British
near the town of New Orleans.
2, We looked down the river & we see the British come
And there must of been a hundred of them beating on a
drum.
They step so high that they made the bugles ring,
As we sat behind the cotton bales
and didn’t say a thing.
3. Old Hickory said we could take them by surprise
If we didn’t fire a musket till we looked em in the eyes;
We held our fire till we seen their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns
and really gave them hell.
4. We fired so fast that the cannon melted down
So we got an alligator and we loaded him down
We filled him up with cannon balls and powdered his behind.
When we lit the fuse the gator blew his mind.
5. Well they ran through the brambles,
and they ran through the branches
They ran through the bushes where rabbits couldn’t go;
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch them
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Blue Tail Fly
CHORUS
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care
Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care
The master’s gone away.
1. When I was young I used to wait on ald massa
and give him his pla
Pass the bottle when he got dry
And chase away the blue tail fly.
2. And when he’d ride in the afternoon,
I’d follow after with a hickory broom
The pony being rather shy
Then bitten by a blue tail fly.
3. One day he rode around the farm
The flies so numerous they did swam ;
One chanced to bite him on the thigh
Debit take the blue tail fly.
4. The pony run, he jump, he pitch
Throw my master in the ditch
He died, the jury wondered why
The verdict was the blue tail fly.
5. They lay him under a ‘simmon tree
His epitaph is there to see
”Beneath this tree I’m forced to lie
Victim of the blue tail fly.”
Blue Water Line
CHORUS
Blue Water, Blue Water, Blue Water Line (repeat)
If you can’t afford a quarter
Then you ought to give a dime.
If everybody gave then we could save
The Blue Water Line,
1. The city council met last week
The vote was four to three
To tear the home town depot down
And build a factory.
To take that streak of victory
And tear it off the map
To melt old engine number nine
And turn her into scrap.
2. Oh: I could tell you stories
Of the glories on that train,
About the forty-niner miners
And the time Old Jesse James
Stole a thousand golden nuggets
In that great train robbery,
And the time old Abe Lincoln rode
With Todd upon his knee
3. Just forty thousand quarters
And twenty thousand dimes,
And we’ll ride again to glory
On the old Blue Water Line.
We’ll have William Jennings Bryant
Stoking coal on number nine,
So dig into you pockets
For the Old Blue Water Line
Chicago Fire Song
Late last night
When we were all in bed,
Mrs. O’Leary Hung a lantern in the shed.
And when the cow kicked it over,
She winked her eye and said
”There’ll be a hot time In the ol’ town tonight!”
Fire! Fire! Fire!
(Repeat 3 times, each time softer except for the last line
“fire! fire! fire!”)
Owasippe legends, Ballads & Vignettes