Niggers diggin’ in de groun’,
Niggers diggin’ in de groun’.
Marse sleepin’ day time,
Niggers diggin’ in de groun’.
CHAPTER VII
JUST SONGS TO HELP WITH WORK
In some respects it is unfortunate that classification of the Negro workaday songs must be attempted, for, strictly speaking, accurate classification is not possible. There is much overlapping apparent in most of the best types. There are mixed pictures in the majority and a cross index would be necessary for any sort of complete analysis. And yet the total picture is clearer when the songs are grouped according to prevailing themes, as has been done in other chapters on the wanderer songs, the bad man ballads, chain gang and jail songs, favorites of the construction gang, songs of woman, songs of man, and religious remnants. In each of these classes it is readily seen that there is abundance of new material of great value. And yet, after these attempts at classification, there are scores of songs, some the favorites of the present day, some among the most attractive, which appear best as simple work songs, sung as an integral physical part of the Negro’s workaday efforts. These songs are not simply the “miscellaneous” and “all others” group. They are more than that; they are the songs for song’s sake, expression for expression’s sake, and “hollerin’ jes’ to he’p me wid my work.”
This chapter, therefore, presents a varied group of songs, many of which, for simple spontaneity, imagery, and creative art might well represent the choice of the collection. Among these are the lyric types like those quoted in Chapter I, figures of a “rainbow ’round my shoulders,” the “feet rollin’ lak a wheel,” the winter song in summer, and many other fragments of similar quality. There are fragments, pick-and-shovel songs, driving songs, mostly short, which are sung perhaps more often than any others by the group of workers. This chapter will present, first, some of the miscellaneous and more artistic songs that are most difficult to classify except as “just songs to help with work.” Then will follow certain types, corruptions from blues, jazz and minstrel, but sung on any and all occasions, one as well as another, in the kitchen, on the road, in the field, in the alley, in the barber shop, or on the street. Then, finally, there will be the group of incoherent words and lines, senseless for the most part and merely expressive of feeling and effort. In addition to these there are still more than one hundred miscellaneous songs, improvisations, fragments and other collected items which must await a special collection of this sort.
One of the most attractive of all the work songs is Mule on the Mountain, in which the title constitutes the bulk of the song. It is a pick-and-shovel favorite repeated over and over with variations and exclamations. The simplest form of this song is as follows:
Mule on the Mountain
Mule on mountain