Annotation:Nigger Sick

Find traditional instrumental music


Back to Nigger Sick


X:1 T:N..... Sick M:4/4 L:1/8 R:Reel B:Bayard - Dance to the Fiddle, March to the Fife (1981, No. 296) K:G dBcA dB c2|dBcA GE D2z2|dBcA dB c2|ABAG EG D2z2|| EGAG EGAz|EGAG EC Dz|EGAG EGA>B|cBcA GE Dx||



N.....[1] SICK. AKA and see "Niggery Sick," "Neeky Seeky." American, Reel. USA, southwestern Pa. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'B. Collector Samuel Bayard heard these rhymes with the tune in southwestern Pennsylvania:

N..... sick and nigger dead,
N..... had a wooly head;
N..... sick and nigger dead,
Devil take his curly head. .... (Bayard-H. White)


N..... sick and nigger die;
N..... eat a chicken pie. .... (Strosnider)

Fisk University African-American collector Thomas Talley printed the closely related (and just as racist) rhyme in his Negro Folk Rhymes Wise and Otherwise (1922, p. 13):

N.....! N..... never die!
He gits choked on Chicken pie.
Black face, white shiny eye. N.....! N.....!

N.....! N..... never knows!
Mashed nose, an' crooked toes;
Dat's de way de Nigger goes. N.....! N.....!

N.....! N..... always sing;
Jump up, cut de Pidgeon's wing;
Whirl, an' give his feet a fling. N.....! N.....!


Additional notes
Source for notated version : - George Strosnider (elderly fidder from Greene County, Pa., 1930's), John Tustin (Greene County, Pa., 1944), Hiram White (elderly fiddler from Greene County, Pa., 1930's) [Bayard].

Printed sources : - Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle, March to the Fife), 1981; No. 296A-C, pp. 251-252.






Back to Nigger Sick

0.00
(0 votes)



  1. Some of items in the Traditional Tune Archive may contain offensive language or negative stereotypes. Such materials should be seen in the context of the time period and as a reflection of the attitudes of the time. The items are part of the historical record, and do not represent the views of the administrators of this site.