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Cross-Eyed Butcher and the Cackling Hen
Traditional Bluegrass, Old Time Banjo Song. USA.
ARTIST: Uncle Dave Macon from Br 114; 1926
Listen: Uncle Dave Macon- Cross-Eyed Butcher and the Cackling Hen
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: 1800s; Early 1900’s
RECORDING INFO: Cross-Eyed Butcher [Me II-W23]
Golden Melody Boys. Early Country Music, Historical HLP 8002, LP (197?), trk# B.06 [1927/10ca]
Cross-Eyed Butcher and the Cackling Hen [Me II-W23]
Rt - Cacklin Hen and Rooster Too
Macon, Uncle Dave. Classic Sides 1924-1938, JSP 7729A-D, CD( (2004), trk# B.06 [1926/09/09]
OTHER NAMES: "Cross-Eyed Butcher,"
SOURCES: Meade; Folk Index
NOTES: “Cross-Eyed Butcher and the Cackling Hen” by Uncle Dave Macon is related to Cacklin' Hen (lyrics) but is also related to a number of fast banjo songs and has the "Shout Lulu" chorus. It's not the fiddle tune "Cacklin' Hen/Old Hen Cackled."
The first part is derived by Macon from an old minstrel routine:
Negro Minstrels (1902): A Complete Guide to Negro Minstrelsy, by Jack Haverly
A NEW JOB
Mr. Cleveland, I got a new job since I saw you.
Mid.—What doing?
End.—Holding cows for a cross-eyed butcher.
Mid.—How did you like it?
End.—Oh, I didn't like it at all. You see, the first cow I held the butcher drew off to hit her (you know how a cross-eyed man looks); I said, '' Say, are you going to hit where you're looking?" (I thought he was looking at me.) He said, "Yes." I said, "I guess you'll have to get some one else to hold your cow."
The second part is a different comic story about a dentist. The third part of the song is "Hen Cackled/Cacklin' Hen" lyrics.
CACKLIN' HEN NOTES Kuntz: "G Major. Standard. AABB (Brody, Ruth, Shumway); AA'BB (Phillips): ABBCDD (Thede). Many variants of this widely known tune appear under titles which include the adjective "cluck" or "cackling," often with the word "old" also appendaged (see alternate titles above). It has been a fiddle contest standard, and is often still heard at fiddler's gatherings; for example, it is mentioned in a 1931 account of LaFollette, northeast Tenn., fiddlers' contest, and, in 1899 in a contest in Gallatin, Tenn., "Cackling Hen" was one of the 'catagory' tunes (where each fiddler would play the same tune with the winning version winning a prize {Charles Wolfe, The Devil's Box, Vol. 14, No. 4, 12/1/80}). The piece was reworked by the early 20th century Georgia group called the Skillet Lickers, and was recorded by them in the early 30's as "Old Man Depression Get On Your Way." The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
"The first commercial country record to be issued was Fiddlin' John Carson's Old Hen Cackled and The Rooster's Going to Crow, backed with The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane, recorded 14/06/23. When the record company got around to listing it in the catalogue it was assigned the number OKEH 4890. Both sides were very much in the vein of early country music, although neither owes much to the folk traditions of Britain or Ireland. So far as I know there is no documentation on the ownership of phonographs in backwoods America, but the fact that Carson's disc met with immediate runaway success, and precipitated an entire country music industry, suggests that they were fairly common even by 1923." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
"John Carson’s "Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going to Crow" (Key G Standard AABBCCDD) was popular with both black and white mid-South string bands, writes Charles Wolfe (1991), although it is "conspicuously absent from most standard collections of black folk songs." As evidence of the tune in black tradition, it was in the repertoire of African-American fiddler Cuje Bertram (of the Cumberland Plateau region, Kentucky), recorded by him on a 1970 home recording he made for his family. It also was recorded by African-American fiddlers Howard Armstrong and the string-band team of Joe Evans and Arthur McClain." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
"The tune was widely known in the South and Mid-West, with several regional and personal variants. Later in the same era Chattanooga fiddler Jess Young added a part in the key of C in his recording. The tune was recorded for the Library of Congress by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph from Ozark Mountain fiddlers in the early 1940's. Apart from numerous recordings in the 78 RPM era, evidence for its popularity comes from contemporary newspapers. It is listed in the Northwest Alabamian (Fayette) of August 19, 1929, as one of the tunes likely to be played at an upcoming fiddlers' convention. The Chilton County News (Alabama) of June 1, 1922, predicted it would be one of the tunes that would "vie with the latest jazz nerve wreckers for first place" at a Chilton County fiddlers' convention." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
Cross-Eyed Butcher and the Cackling Hen- Uncle Dave Macon
Listen: Uncle Dave Macon- Cross-Eyed Butcher and the Cackling Hen
[Banjo; Spoken] Hot Dog! Get Right!
Cross-eyed man was a butcher boy,
Hired Pat McCann a cow to hold.
Pat took the job for there weren't any pains,
The work was light and a regular thing.
Pat took the cow and the butcher took the ax,
"Now hold her till I give her a whack."
Pat gazed in his eye with a bold dismay,
Hold on a minute I say.
Are you gonna strike where you're looking now,
The butcher says "Yes, so don't raise a row."
Well if you're gonna strike where you're looking now,
Get another man for to hold the cow.
Chorus: Shout Lu, Shout Lu, I'm going away.
Pat asked the dentist if he could take,
A bad tooth out without an ache.
Oh, the dentist said, "Is that the place,"
Sat Pat in the chair and he opened up his face.
So he gave the boy a pin that measured two feet,
"When I pull jab in the seat."
Oh, the dentist he pulled and the boy he jabbed,
Pat jumped and hollered, "Bejabbers I'm stabbed."
Oh, there's the root and there you are,
Pat said, "I didn't know it ran down so far."
Chorus
Old hen cackled, she cackled in the lot,
Next time she cackled it was in the pot.
Shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo, Shoo.
Shanghai chicken ain't got no comb,
This old roustabout got no home.
Old hen sitting in the parlor stack,
Hawk flew down and took her in the back.
Shanghai chicken ain't got no comb,
This old roustabout got no home.
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