Annotation:Bile Them Cabbage Down
BILE THEM CABBAGE DOWN. AKA - "Boil Them Cabbage Down," "Bake Them Hoecakes Brown." AKA and see "Carve Dat Possum (1)," "Possum Pie," "Rocking My Sugar Lump," "Somebody's Rockin' My Sugar Lump." American, Reel (cut time). USA; Oklahoma, Arkansas, southwestern Pa., northeast Alabama. D Major (Bayard, Thede): A Major (Beisswenger & McCann, Reiner, Ruth, Sweet): G Major (Silberberg). Standard or AEae (McMichen) tunings (fiddle). One part: AABB (Sweet): AA'BB'CC' (Beisswenger & McCann): AABBCCDD' (Ruth). The word 'bile' means 'boil'. Ralph Rinzler traces the tune to an early English country dance "Smiling Polly," in print in 1765[1]. "Bile Them Cabbage Down" is commonly found in beginning fiddle instructors and in ditty-books, and is "a negro reel tune which has become universally popular among white square dance musicians" (Alan Lomax). African-American origins are evident in collections of White, Scarborough and Brown-all from black informants. Tennessee banjoist and entertainer Uncle Dave Macon recorded one of the first versions of the song in 1924; that same year Georgia fiddler and entertainer Fiddlin' John Carson, and Georgia guitarist and singer Riley Puckett both separately recorded the tune. Clayton McMichen put together a virtuoso version of this tune to use in competition at various major fiddle contests. Also played by Arthur Smith on his radio broadcasts (Frank Maloy). The tune was Clayton McMichen's favorite contest tune, by his own account (Charles Wolfe). Richardson, in American Mountain Songs, p. 88., thought the tune was derived from "Oh Susanna." The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by folklorist/musicologist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Cauthen (1990) found evidence the tune was commonly known in northeast Alabama from its mention in two sources: reports of the De Kalb County Annual (Fiddlers') Convention 1926-31, and in the book Sourwood Tonic and Sassafras Tea (where it was listed as one of the tunes played by turn of the century Etowah County fiddler George Cole). Richard Nevins believes the tune was not known in the Mt. Airy, N.C., musical community until the advent of the phonograph. Beisswenger & McCann (2008) note that Ozarks fiddlers typically employ the "Nashville shuffle" bowing pattern when playing this tune, and that it is often used as the vehicle for contest fiddlers to show off crowd-pleasing virtuostic techniques.
A version of the tune was recorded in the 78 RPM era by the Carolina Tar Heels, who titled it "Drake's Reel," named after their newest member, Drake Walsh.
African-American collector Thomas Talley was the first to publish the text of the song in his book Negro Folk Rhymes (1922, reprinted in 1991 edited by Charles Wolfe). His lyric (No. 232, "Cooking Dinner") goes:
Go: Bile dem cabbage down.
Turn dat hoecake 'round,
Cook it done an' brown.
Yes: Gwineter have sweet taters too.
Hain't had none since las' Fall,
Gwineter eat 'em skins an' all.
Modern lyrics go:
Bile them cabbage down,
Bake that hoecake brown;
The only song that I can sing
Is 'Bile Them Cabbage Down.'
- ↑ Ralph Rinzler, liner notes to Folkways FA 2315, "The Stoneman Family: Old Time Songs".