This Old Man- Tab Ward (NC) pre1966 Burton
[From Manning and Burton, Folksongs II (From Beech Mountain , NC) 1969. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2013]
TAB WARD- bio by Burton and Manning
Nathan Talbert Ward was born June 4, 1903, the fourth of eight children. His father was a farmer from Ward Branch who married a girl also from up on the Beech and moved to Spice Creek, where Tab was born. His grandparents too came from and lived near Beech Mountain: in fact, his great-grandfather Nathan Presnell, Tab says, was the first Presnell to come to Beech Mountain he came as a bear hunter from Alexander county and "just decided to stay." Tab went to Rominger school and attended church meetings at both the Baptist and Methodist Churches. He married a Hicks girl, also from Spice Creek; then in 1938 he moved about five miles away to the banks of the Watauga River where he presently lives. Like his father, he is a farmer, although he has done logging jobs on nearby Grandfather Mountain" Aside from his visit to Ohio to see one of his six children and a trip to Myrtle Beach, Tab has stayed near Beech Mountain all his life; he says that he was "too young tor the first war and too old for the second one."
When Tab was twelve years old he began to play the banjo; however, he "didn't do much partying" and there was little dancing though on Friday nights at Rominger school there were "speaking programs" with music and jokes and tales. After a lapse of more than thirty years he resumed his music some eight years ago when his wife died. He knows several frails, but he uses the double-knock or double-thumb all the time. In this frail the wrist remains loose and the thumb picks the melody alternately with the drone string, while the nails of the index and middle fingers "lick" the strings; when the nails get thin, picks are used. Tab tunes "eight or nine" different ways, and he varies these "chords" according to the song. He says that the "old folk way" of playing a song is to sing and then "drop out a verse, "alternating each sung stanza with an instrumental rendition of the tune. Like his banjo-playing, Tab Ward's guitar-playing was learned "by ear" but his fiddling was picked up from Roby Monroe Hicks when the two of them "made music" together. Mr. Ward accompanied his Songs for this volume on his homemade fretless banjo.
THIS OLD MAN (child 274) Sung by Tab Ward, April 29, 1966; learned from his brother who played it on the banjo.
tonality: hexatonic IIIb/mixolydian
range: octave
(The tonality depends on the next-to-last note, which is held so briefly and is so subordinate that it is difficult to pinpoint. The song is hexatonic IIIb if the note is a D, mixolydian if both D and Eb are used throughout the stanzas. Cf. Mrs. Presnell's variant, "Six Nights Drunk," p.65.)
Burton: "Our Good-man," printed by the Scottish collector David Herd in 1776, has traveled widely, picking up many stanzas, some obscene. The inebriation of the old man is a characteristic of the American texts.
Oh, this old man, he come home as drunk as drunk could be,
"Whose hat a-hangin' on the peg where my hat's s'posed to be?
"Oh, you come here, my dear little wife, 'xplain this thing to me,
Whose hat a-hangin' on the peg where my hat's s'posed to be?"
"Oh, you old fool, you blind old fool, can't you so well see?
It's nothin' but a ball of knit that Mama brought to me."
"I've traveled this wide world over ten thousand times or more;
A hat brim on a ball of knit I never did see before."
Oh, this old man, he come home as drunk as drunk could be,
"Whose horse is in the stable where my horse s'posed to be?"
"Oh, you come here, my dear little wife, 'xplain this thing to me,
Whose horse is in the stable where my horse s'posed to be?"
"Oh, you old fool, you blind old fool, can't you so well see?
It's nothin' but a milk cow my mama brought to me."
"I've traveled this wide world over ten thousand times or more;
A saddle upon a milk cow's back I never did see before."
Oh, this old man, he come home as drunk as drunk could be,
"Whose boots is in the corner where my boots s'posed to be?
"Oh, you come here, my dear little wife, 'xplain this thing to me,
Whose boots is in the corner where my boots s'posed to be?"
"Oh, you old fool, you blind old fool, can't you so well see?
It's nothin' but a butter churn that Mama brought to me."
"I've traveled this wide world over ten thousand times or more;
A heel horn on a butter churn I never did see before."
Oh, this old man, he come home as drunk as drunk could be,
"Whose head upon the pillow where my head s'posed to be?
"Oh, you come here, my dear little wife, 'xplain this thing to me,
Whose head upon the pillow where my head s'posed to be?"
"Oh, you old fool, you blind old fool, can't you so well see?
It's nothin' but a cabbage head that mama brought to me."
"I've traveled this wide world over ten thousand times or more;
A moustache on a cabbage head I never did see before."