Old Dan Tucker
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Old_Dan_Tucker_sheet_music.png/175px-Old_Dan_Tucker_sheet_music.png)
"Old Dan Tucker", also known as "Ole Dan Tucker", "Dan Tucker", and other variants, is a popular American song. Its origins remain obscure; the tune may have come from the oral tradition, and the words may have been written by songwriter and performer Dan Emmett. The blackface troupe the Virginia Minstrels popularized "Old Dan Tucker" in 1843, and it quickly became a minstrel hit, behind only "Miss Lucy Long" and "Mary Blane" in popularity during the antebellum period. "Old Dan Tucker" entered the folk vernacular around the same time. It is today a bluegrass and country music standard.
The first sheet music edition of "Old Dan Tucker", published in 1843, is a song of boasts and nonsense in the vein of previous minstrel hits such as "Jump Jim Crow" and "Gumbo Chaff". In exaggerated Black Vernacular English, the lyrics tell of Dan Tucker's exploits in a strange town, where he fights, gets drunk, overeats, and breaks other social taboos. Minstrel troupes freely added and removed verses, and folk singers have since added hundreds more. Parodies and political versions are also known.
The song falls into the idiom of previous minstrel music, relying on rhythm and text declamation as its primary motivation. Its melody is simple and the harmony little developed. Nevertheless, contemporary critics found the song more pleasant than previous minstrel fare. Musicologist Dale Cockrell argues that the song represents a transition between early minstrel music and the more European-style songs of minstrelsy's later years.
Lyrics
"Old Dan Tucker" exemplifies the masculine boasting songs that predominated in early minstrelsy.[1][2] In a racist form of Black Vernacular English,[3][4] the song uses short, active words such as runnin and cryin, to portray Dan Tucker as a rough-and-ready black man in the mold of Jim Crow, Gumbo Chaff,[5] and ultimately the tall tale frontiersman:[6]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/38px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png)
- I come to town de udder night,
- I hear de noise an saw de fight,
- De watchman was a runnin roun,
- Cryin Old Dan Tucker's come to town.
- Gran' Chorus.
- So get out de way! Get out de way!
- Get out de way! Old Dan Tucker.
- Your to late to come to supper.
Tucker is an animalistic character, driven by sex, violence, and strong drink. He is ugly, unrefined, and unintelligent.[3] As a stranger in town, his devil-may-care actions show his problems with or ambivalence to adapting to local mores.[7] More broadly, Tucker's disdain for social norms allows the song to send up respectable middle class American society, as evidenced by the final verse:[8]
- Tucker was a hardened sinner,
- He nebber said his grace at dinner;
- De ole sow squeel, de pigs did squall
- He 'hole hog wid de tail and all.
Other verses do not go along with the main narrative and are simply nonsense. Their lines seem to serve no other purpose than to make a rhyme or extend the pattern scheme.[9] The third verse is one example:
- Here's my razor in good order
- Magnum bonum -- jis hab bought 'er;
- Sheep shell oats, Tucker shell de corn,
- I'll shabe you soon as de water get warm.[10]
Dan Tucker is both the teller and subject of the story. Verses 1, 3, and 5 are in the first person, whereas verses 2, 4, and 7 are in the third. This reflects the song's intended performance by an entire minstrel troupe. The lead minstrel played Tucker and began the song, but backup singers took over at times to allow Tucker to act out the scenario, dance, or do some other comedy bit.[11] There was probably an element of competition to the various dance and music solos.[9] The third-person verses also allowed for some commentary to suggest to the audience how they were to judge the character and his antics.[7]
Individual companies probably selectively performed verses from the song or added new ones.[12] For example, the Virginia Serenaders added verses about the Irish, Dutch, and French.[13]
Folk versions
"Old Dan Tucker" entered American folklore soon after it was written. Its simple and malleable nature means that singers may begin or end it at any point or invent new verses on the spot.[14] In fact, hundreds of folk verses have been recorded.[15] This is a common folk variant:
- Old Daniel Tucker wuz a mighty man,
- He washed his face in a fryin' pan;
- Combed his head wid a wagon wheel
- And he died wid de toofache in his heel.[16]
A common chorus variant goes:
- So, git outa de way for old Dan Tucker,
- He's come too late to git his supper.
- Supper's over and breakfast cookin',
- Old Dan Tucker standin' lookin'.[17]
For many decades, "Old Dan Tucker" was used as part of a dancing game.[18] The players formed a ring , and one man moved to the center. He selected women to swing around according to the lyrics:
- Here's old Dan, he comes to town;
- He swings the ladies round and round.
- He swings one east, he swings one west,
- He swings with the one he loves the best.
The third woman chosen then became his new partner, and her old partner now took the role of "Old Dan". [19]
These folk versions can be quite ribald.[20] This one, recalled by a man from his boyhood in Benton County, Arkansas, in the 1910s, is one example:
- Old Dan Tucker was a fine old soul,
- Buckskin belly and a rubber ass-hole,
- Swallowed a barrel of cider down
- And then he shit all over town.[21]
"Old Dan Tucker" entered the folklore of slaves as well. This version from Orange County, North Carolina was recorded in the 1850s:
- Marster and Missus look' might fine—
- Gwine to take a journey, gwine whar dey gwine,
- Crab grass a-dyin', red sun in de west,
- Saturday's comin', nigger gwine to rest.[22]
Political versions
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8e/Get_off_the_Track_sheet_music.jpg/175px-Get_off_the_Track_sheet_music.jpg)
The original "Old Dan Tucker" and most folk variants are not political in nature.[3] However, as early as 1844, the Hutchinson Family Singers were performing "Get off the Track!" to its tune, billed as "A song for Emancipation"[23] One verse and the chorus say:
- Ho! the car Emancipation
- Rides majestic thro' our nation,
- Bearing on its train the story;
- Liberty! a nation's glory.
- Get out the way! Every station!
- Freedom's car, Emancipation![24]
That same year, supporters of Henry Clay at a Whig rally sang a version that made references to Clay ("Ole Kentucky"), Martin Van Buren, and James Buchanan:
- The people's fav'rite, Henry Clay, is now the 'fashion' of the day;
- And let the track be dry or mucky, we'll stake our pile on Ole Kentucky.
- Get out of the way, he's swift and lucky; clear the track for Ole Kentucky![25]
In 1856, supporters of John C. Frémont's run for the Republican Party nomination adopted the tune as his campaign song with the changed refrain "Get out the way, old Buchanan".[26] William Jennings Bryan's campaign song for the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, changed the lyrics to say:[27]
- Voters, come and hear my ditty,
- What was done at Kansas City:
- David Hill, the New York lion,
- Nominated Billy Bryan.
- Get out of the way, you Grand Old Party,
- You're so old, you're getting warty.[28]
A version popular during the American Civil War added references to Abraham Lincoln:
- Old Abe is coming down to fight,
- And put the Democrats to flight;
- He's coming with the wedge and maul
- And he will split 'em one and all.
- Get out the way, you little giant
- You can't come in, you're too short and pliant.[29]
Structure
"Old Dan Tucker" is a dance song known as a breakdown; the rhythmic accent falls on the second and fourth beats rather than on the third.[30] The song is largely Anglo-American in nature, although it has some black influences. Its melodic idiom matches that of earlier minstrel standards, such as "Jump Jim Crow", "Coal Black Rose", and "Old Zip Coon".[31]
The song consists of 28 bars. It begins with a boisterous eight-bar introduction. Four bars follow to "frame" the coda. Finally, sixteen bars with lyrics come, half devoted to verse, and half to refrain.[31] Each phrase gives way directly to the next with no rests between sections.[32]
Rhythm is perhaps the most important component of "Old Dan Tucker". It begins with a cadenced introduction and little melody.[33] Even when the tune begins in earnest, it is flat and non-harmonized and does little more than provide a beat on which words are uttered.[31][34] The refrain is syncopated in a way that had only previously been used in the minstrel song "Old Zip Coon". The intense rhythm on the line "Get out the way!" generates a forward momentum, and is answered by instruments in one example of the song's black-influenced call and response.[32]
"Old Dan Tucker" was, of course, intended for stage performance. The verses are not only to be played but also acted out and danced to. Minstrels could begin leaping about at the introduction and coda, beginning the full music at the vocal section.[32] Performers probably included instrumental versions of the chorus while they played, a rare practice in early minstrelsy.[3]
Musicologist Dale Cockrell argues that "Old Dan Tucker" in fact represents a bridge between the percussive blackface songs of the 1830s and the more refined compositions of songwriters such as Stephen Foster.[5] Cockrell says that, unlike previous minstrel songs, "Old Dan Tucker" is meant for more than just dancing; its tune is developed enough to stand on its own.[35] Contemporary critics certainly noticed the difference. Y. S. Nathanson called it "the best of what I have denominated the ancient negro ballads. The melody is far superior to anything that had preceded it."[36] Nathanson went on to compare the song to works by Gaetano Donizetti and Daniel Auber.[3]
Composition
The origin of the music of "Old Dan Tucker" has always been obscure, and no sheet music edition from 1843, its year of its first publication, names a composer. The first performance of the tune (but not lyrics) may have happened as early as 1841.[37] The music may in fact be from the oral tradition or may have been a product of collaboration.[31]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Dan_Emmett_old.jpg/175px-Dan_Emmett_old.jpg)
Nevertheless, "Old Dan Tucker" has been credited to at least three different songwriters: Dan Emmett, J. R. Jenkins, and Henry Russell.[38] In his old age, Emmett related the traditional story to his biographer, H. Ogden Wintermute: "I composed Old Dan Tucker in 1830 or 1831, when I was fifteen or sixteen years old."[39] The biography claims that Emmett first performed the song in public at a performance by a group of traveling entertainers. They lacked a fiddle player, and the local innkeeper suggested young Emmett to fill in. Emmett played "Old Dan Tucker" to the manager's liking, and he debuted on the village green in blackface to perform the song. Wintermute claims that the name Dan Tucker is a combination of Emmett's own name and that of his dog.[40] However, there is no evidence for this.[41] Instead, Emmett may merely have written the words.[37] Even these seem to partially derive from an earlier minstrel song called "Oh, Come along John" or "Walk along, John", first published in various songsters in the early 1840s.[42] Some verses in it have clear echoes in versions of "Old Dan Tucker":
- Johnny law on de rail road track,
- He tied de engine on his back;
- He pair's his corn wid a rail road wheel,
- It gib 'em de tooth ache in de heel.[43]
The Charles Keith company published "Old Dan Tucker" in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1843.[44][31] The sheet music credits words to Dan Emmett but says that the song is from "Old Dan Emmit's Original Banjo Melodies".[45] The lack of attribution of the melody may be another sign that Emmett did not write it.[31]
Possible slave origin
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Dan_Tucker_Graveyard.jpg/230px-Dan_Tucker_Graveyard.jpg)
A story dating to at least 1965 claims that "Old Dan Tucker" was written by slaves about a man named Daniel Tucker who lived in Elbert County, Georgia. Tucker was a farmer, ferryman, and minister who appears in records from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The story, as related by Mrs. Guy Rucker, the great-great-granddaughter of one of Tucker's neighbors, claims that Tucker became quite well liked by the slaves in his area through his ministry to them.[46]
According to this interpretation, the lyrics address Tucker directly. The chorus, "You're too late to get your supper" is a kindhearted taunt towards a man who often arrived after dark, forcing his hosts to scrap up a meal for him.[46] The song's occasional lewdness is explained by the natural impromptu nature of its supposed origin.[47]
"Old Dan Tucker" does show some evidence of black influence. For example, some of the bizarre imagery in folk versions of the song (e.g., "toothache in his heel") may be a sign of legitimate black input (or of someone poking fun of slaves who had an incomplete knowledge of English).[41] "Old Dan Tucker" most closely resembles African music in its call-and-response refrain.[32]
Daniel Tucker was buried in Elbert County in 1818.[48] The Elbert County Chamber of Commerce today promotes his grave as a tourist attraction due to his possible connection with the character from the song.[49]
Popularity
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Virginia_Minstrels%2C_1843.jpg/225px-Virginia_Minstrels%2C_1843.jpg)
The first confirmed performance of "Old Dan Tucker" was by the Virginia Minstrels at the Bowery Amphitheatre on February 6, 1843. Their minstrel show also included a comic scene loosely based on the song, "Dan Tucker on Horseback", about a black riding master. The piece starred Richard Pelham in the title role and Frank Brower as a black clown.[50] "Old Dan Tucker" did not appear on a Virginia Minstrels playbill until a 7 and March 8 performance at Boston's Masonic Temple. There, the playbill described it as "OLD DAN TUCKER, a Virginian Refrain, in which is described the ups and downs of Negro life."[51] Beginning March 7, Emmett billed himself as "Old Dan Emmett".[52]
By the end of March, "Old Dan Tucker" was a hit, and it quickly became the Virginia Minstrels' most popular song.[53][5] Only "Miss Lucy Long" exceeded it in popularity for the 1843–7 period,[54] and research by musicologist William J. Mahar suggests that it was behind only "Mary Blane" and "Lucy Long" in its frequency of publication in antebellum songsters.[55]
The song became so identified with Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels that it became part of their foundation myth. Billy Whitlock and George B. Wooldridge both claimed that the troupe members played "Old Dan Tucker" in their first impromptu performance together:
. . . as if by accident, each one picked up his tools and joined in a chorus of "Old Dan Tucker," while Emmett was playing and singing. It went well, and they repeated it without saying a word. Each did his best, and such a rattling of the principal and original instruments in a minstrel band was never heard before.[56]
Emmett repeated this story in the May 19, 1877, New York Clipper, although other details changed.[57] The press began to refer to Emmett as "Ole Dan Tucker"[53], and Emmett eventually adopted the nickname. The Virginia Minstrels sometimes went by "Ole Dan Tucker and Co."[58]
The song's disdain for the customs of the upper classes hit a chord with working class audiences.[33] On January 28, 1843, the New York Sporting Whip reported that the song had been adopted by a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, street gang called the Hallow Guards. As their leader, Stovepipe Bill, led them against a military raid, he sang the verses followed by the gang singing the chorus.[59] Two years later, The Knickerbocker remarked, "At this present moment, a certain ubiquitous person seems to be in the way of the whole people of these United States simultaneously."[60] In "Negro Minstrelsy—Ancient and Modern", Nathanson claims that "Old Dan Tucker" had "been sung, perhaps, oftener than any melody ever written."[61]
In 1871, 28 years after its first published edition, Board and Trade listed editions of "Old Dan Tucker" in print from seven different publishers. The song had by default fallen into the public domain.[62] In later decades, "Old Dan Tucker" became a standard of bluegrass and country music,[63] with recordings by Fiddlin' John Carson, Uncle Dave Macon, Pete Seeger, Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers, and many more.[64] Children's music collections frequently feature the song as well.
Notes
- ^ Crawford 211.
- ^ Mahar 15, 228
- ^ a b c d e Cockrell 156.
- ^ McCulloch-Williams, quoted in Lomax and Lomax 259.
- ^ a b c Cockrell 155.
- ^ Stearns and Stearns 43–4.
- ^ a b Mahar 228.
- ^ Crawford 208, 211.
- ^ a b Mahar 230.
- ^ All song quotations from "Old Dan Tucker" sheet music (1843), Charles H. Keith, Boston. Quoted in Waltz.
- ^ Mahar 15.
- ^ Mahar 229–30.
- ^ Mahar 397 note 40.
- ^ McCulloch-Williams, Martha, letter to the New York Sun, quoted in Lomax and Lomax 258.
- ^ Lomax and Lomax 261.
- ^ This verse or a variant thereof is quoted in Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, Volume III, p. 303, A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book (both quoted in Waltz), and in Lomax and Lomax 261.
- ^ This chorus or a variant thereof appears in Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, Volume III, p. 303, A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book (both quoted in Waltz) and in Lomax and Lomax 261.
- ^ Casey 41.
- ^ Gardner 116.
- ^ McCulloch-Williams, quoted in Lomax and Lomax 259.
- ^ Randolph 431.
- ^ Avriett, The Old Plantation, 140-46, quoted in Abrahams, Singing the Master, 236-37. Quoted in Mahar 259.
- ^ Crawford 257.
- ^ Hutchinson, Jesse (1845). "Get off the Track!". The Liberty Minstrel. Leavitt & Alden.
- ^ Quoted in Harland 137.
- ^ May 74.
- ^ Welsch 78–9.
- ^ Quoted in Welsch 78–9
- ^ Forcucci 131.
- ^ Cantwell 124.
- ^ a b c d e f Crawford 206.
- ^ a b c d Crawford 208.
- ^ a b Crawford 210.
- ^ Finson, John W. (1994). The Voices that Are Gone: Themes in Nineteenth-century American Popular Song. New York: Oxford University Press. Quoted in Mahar 397 note 41.
- ^ Cockrell 156–7.
- ^ [Nathanson, Y. S.] (January 1855). "Negro Minstrelsy—Ancient and Modern". Putnam's Monthly; a Magazine of American Literature, Science, and Art 5, no. 25. P. 74. Quoted in Cockrell 156.
- ^ a b Nathan 301.
- ^ Tracy 19.
- ^ Quoted in Chase 239.
- ^ Canebrake Minstrels.
- ^ a b Rammel 91.
- ^ Rammel 90.
- ^ Quoted in Rammel 90.
- ^ Mahar 14.
- ^ Quoted in Crawford 206.
- ^ a b Wilcox 28.
- ^ Wilcox 28–9.
- ^ Wilcox 29.
- ^ Elbert County Chamber of Commerce.
- ^ Nathan 118–9.
- ^ Quoted in Nathan 119.
- ^ Nathan 120.
- ^ a b Nathan 121.
- ^ Winans, Robert B. "Early Minstrel Show Music, 1843-1852". Mentioned in the Canebrake Minstrels.
- ^ Mahar 367.
- ^ New York Clipper, April 13, 1878. Quoted in Nathan 116.
- ^ Nathan 117.
- ^ Lawrence 232 note 26.
- ^ Cockrell 200 note 62.
- ^ The Knickerbocker, 1845, quoted in The Black Perspective in Music (1975), p. 87-8; quoted in turn in Crawford 210 note 23.
- ^ Quoted in Nathan 179 note 17.
- ^ Crawford 870-1 note 21.
- ^ Stearns and Stearns?
- ^ Waltz and Engle.
References
- The Canebrake Minstrels (2003), Website for Finer than Froghair. Accessed September 17, 2006.
- Cantwell, Robert (2003). Bluegrass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
- Casey, Betty (1985). Dance across Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press.
- Chase, Gilbert (1987). America's Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present. 3rd ed. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
- Cockrell, Dale (1997). Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World. Cambridge University Press.
- Crawford, Richard (2001). America's Musical Life: A History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
- Elbert County Chamber of Commerce (no date). Old Dan Tucker. Tourist pamphlet.
- Forcucci, Samuel L. (1984). A Folk Song History of America: America through Its Songs. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
- Galbreath, C. B. (1901). "Song Writers of Ohio". Ohio Archæological and Historical Publications. Vol. XIII.
- Gardner, Emelyn E. (1920) "Some Play-party Games in Michigan". The Journal of American Folk-lore Vol. 33. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The American Folk-lore Society.
- Harland, Marion (1910). Marion Harland's Autobiography: The Story of a Long Life. New York City: Harper & Brothers Publishers.
- Lawrence, Vera Brodsky (1988). Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong. Volume I: Resonances, 1838-1849. The University of Chicago Press.
- Lomax, John A., and Lomax, Alan (1934). American Ballads and Folk Songs. New York: The Macmillan Company.
- Mahar, William J. (1999). Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
- May, Robert E. (2002). Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
- Nathan, Hans (1962). Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
- Rammel, Hal (1990). Nowhere in America: The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Other Comic Utopias. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
- Randolph, Vance (1992). Roll Me in Your Arms: "Unprintable" Ozark Folksongs and Folklore. Vol I: Folksongs and Music. Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press.
- Silber, Irwin (1960). Songs of the Civil War. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications.
- Stearns, Marshall, and Stearns, Jeanne (1968). Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. New York City: Da Capo Press.
- Tracy, Steven C. (1993). Going to Cincinnati: A History of the Blues in the Queen City. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
- Waltz, Robert (4 August 2005). "Oral Transmission". A Site Inspired by the Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism. Accessed September 17, 2006.
- Waltz, Robert B., and Engle, David G. (2006). "Old Dan Tucker". The Ballad Index.
- Welsch, Roger L. (1966). A Treasury of Nebraska Folklore. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
- Wilcox, Herbert (February-March 1965). "'Old Dan Tucker Was a Grand Old Man': And He Really Lived in Elbert County in the Good Old Days. Georgia Magazine.
- Yetman, Norman R., ed. (2000). Voices from Slavery: 100 Authentic Slave Narratives. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc.