Danyou- Miller (NC) pre1915 Smith; Brown A
[See the music below from Vol. 4. There is a slight discrepency between the text of the music and the text in Volume 2: The music has, Um te diddle te Dan-you. While the text has, Um to diddle to Dan-you. Lee Smith, who is Thomas Smith's brother has a version, (See Davis EE) that is similar.]
Brown Collection No. 44. The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin (Child 277)
Not old — Child's earliest recorded text is from the late eighteenth century — this ballad is a general favorite among ballad-singing folk on both sides of the water. See BSM 92, and add to the references there given Tennessee (BTFLS viii 74), Florida (FSF 322), Missouri (OFS I 187-8), and Indiana (BSI 151-4). Robert Leslie Mason has recently (SFLQ xi 134-5) reported from Tennessee a text that is a curious combination of this ballad and 'The Farmer's Curst Wife.' All of the North Carolina texts use the "Dandoo" refrain, most of them combining with it some form of the "clish-ma-clingo" refrain. There is little variation in the story content.
A. 'Danyou.' Sent in by Thomas Smith of Zionville, Watauga county, in 1915 with the notation: "The above song was written down March 14 by Mrs. Ada Rayfield (formerly Miss Miller), a relative of Lorenzo Miller. Lorenzo (Ranz) Miller is the man who sings this song. He served through the Civil War in the Confederate Army, he was a fifer. Mr. Miller is still a splendid fifer and singer. He lives in the mountains east of Zionville." Some time later (1921) Mrs. Rayfield sang the ballad for Dr. Brown, enabling him to take down the tune. The intercalated refrain and the repetition of the opening line of the stanza run through the text.
1 There was an old man that lived in the West
Dan -you
There was an old man that lived in the West
And he had him a wife that was none of the best.
Um to diddle to Dan-you
2 This old man come in from the plow,
Said to his wife, 'Is dinner ready now?'
3 'There's a little piece of bread laying on the shelf;
If you want any more just get it yourself.'
4 He jumped into his sheep pen
And downed with a wether and took off its skin.
5 He tooked the sheepskin to his wife's back
And the way he made the hickory crack!
6 'I'll tell my father and brothers three
What a whipping you gave me.'
7 'I don't care if you tell your father and all your kin
How I dressed my mutton skin.'
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Music from Vol. 4:
A. 'Danyou.' Sung by Mrs. Ada Rayfield. Recorded in ms score by Mrs. Rayfield at Zionville, Watauga county, March 14, 1915. For another title, coming from the folk-music of Northeastern England, 'Broom, Green Broom,' cf. FMNEE 21.
For melodic relationship cf. ***SharpK i 271-2, No. 39B; measures 1, 5, 13, 14 are identical with our fifth measure ; also 2-4 and 6 are closely related ; ibid. 274, version E and 275, No. 40A, first verse; PSL 41, measure 1. Scale: Mode III, plagal. Tonal Center: f. Structure: abb1c (3,2,2,3). This unusual structure comes about through elision: measures 3-4 and 8-9.