Talk:Camptown Races

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Original

The University of Pittsburgh has an extensive on-line archive of Stephen Foster related materials, as he was a native of Pittsburgh.

Copyvio?

content removed, as it was based on a mistake.

Rising Sun Newsletter

There's an interesting explanation given for this song, in the Rising Sun Newsletter, which appeared in the bottom-outside-corner of the recto pages in The Next Whole Earth Catalog (1981) on p.133 & 135. I'm not sure how to work it in, or whether it's too large to quote in full(?), so I'll leave it here for now. --Quiddity 22:48, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

July 28, 1964

Aside from the songs Amanda makes up, she explains them a lot. Take Camptown Ladies which goes, "Camptown ladies sing this song, doo dah, doo dah, Camptown races five miles long, o doo dah day. Gwana run all night, gwana run all day, bet my money on a bob tail nag, somebody bet on the bay." Amanda played the tune over and over on the piano and told us that the Camptown Ladies were radical abolitionists and all around right thinkers and wierdos and they thought their husbands were not nice people for making money off of slavery and gambling. The ladies encouraged the men to go to the track all they wanted because then the ladies had free, unobserved time to help slaves escape and collect anti-slavery petitions to send to congress and whenever their husbands would ask what they did all day they would say, "O honey, I swept the rug and burped the babes and gossiped with the girls," or to put it another way, (and she'd be at the right point in her piano playing) "Doodah, doodah, " and whenever their husbands would wonder how so many slaves were being able to escape, they'd just say they were simple homebodies and didn't understand such matters, "O doo dah day," and then she asked us all what we'd say if we were trying to change things and somebody asked us what we were doing, and we all sang "Doo dah, doo dah" and if somebody asked us why things aren't as nice and quiet as they used to be, we don't show them our noisemaker, we just say, "O doo dah day."

And then we sang the whole thing through again, and it sounded different and we did the other verses, that Amanda had printed up with her throwing in commentary. "Old muley cow come onto the track, doo dah, doo dah, the bob tail fly her over her back, o etc." was a distracting plot by the Camptown ladies to cover a slave escape. Promises tomorrow to tell us how "I've Been Working on the Railroad" is a song of women plotting for freedom as their men work for multinational corporations"

I, for one, would like more information ^^like this^^ on what this song MEANS. It's very cryptic and I imagine more contextual information like this would be useful. I came here looking for this, and came away empty-handed. - Agent Seven 06:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The ladies

I always thought that the "camptown" of the song was an actual (or imaginary) town not a generic term, and the camptown ladies were the unmarried gals of that town.

I guess that I was wrong. According to the entry, a camptown was a location of temporary housing for men, often working in railroad construction. If this is the case, what would women be doing there. Some might be employed for cooking, cleaning or sewing. However, such a group of young and early middle aged men, who would not have wives or other regular female accompanyment, would attract prostitutes. These must have been the women singing doodah, perhaps to attract customers. 173.18.14.168 (talk) 08:51, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No mention of "Blazing Saddles"?

I find that odd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.60.81.80 (talk) 04:09, 18 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the first verse is right...

I knew that "camptown ladies sing this song" and "camptown races five miles long" parts were right, but I could've sworn that the next part was this: Horses travel 'round the bend! Doo-dah, doo-dah! Guess this race just never ends, oh, doo-dah day!

Maybe I was wrong... RyuKetsueki123 (talk) 21:58, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This University of Toronto page is apparently what the article is using. If you can find a reliable source that lists a variant (which is possible), then add it in. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ten Foot Pole

Is this song the origin of the phrase in American English "I wouldn't touch ____ with a ten foot pole" George 69.119.207.171 (talk) 02:49, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Original Research

I am adding the OR tag until someone can either show why this only needs the one reference tag, or adds more sources. There seem to be a lot of facts in this article, and I don't see many being held up (at least in the article itself).

I have also tagged each fact that should have a reference, if the reference cannot be established, then it is not encyclopedic, and should be removed. IMDB should have a lot of these facts for reference.

☠ Travis "TeamColtra" McCrea ☠ - (T)(C) 06:48, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the items you marked for original research seem to refer to their source material (i.e. an appearance of the song in a named movie at a stated place). This seems to fall under the guideline that we "know sources for that sentence exist". Additionally, they provide cultural context for this song, so unless they are challenged, I would vote to keep them. Benf1977 (talk) 20:45, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How does this constitute "original research"? I'm not denying that there need to be more references listed, but the tag seems inappropriate. Mkubica (talk) 04:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]