Annotation:Katy Bar the Door
X:1 T:Katy Bar the Door C:Unknown composer M:4/4 L:1/8 Q:1/4=120 K:D N:From the playing of Rayna Gellert N:and Susie Goehring on the album N:Starch and Iron N:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMM01NW-CSw N:Transcribed roughly by Jan Howard 2022 D2-|: "D" DFDB Bd d2 | "D" e f2 e f2 ef | "D" g2 g2 fgfd | "A" A3 A A2 ef | "A"g2 g2 fgfA |"G" G2 G2 B3 B | "A" A2 A2 B2 c2 |1"D" d3 d d2 D2- :|2 "D" d3 d d2 e2- || |: "D" eefe dABc |"D" d2 f2 f2 ff |"D" eefe dABG | "A" A3 B ABdd | "D" fded BdAF | "G" G2 G2 B3 B | "A" A2 A2 B2 c2 |1 "D" d3 d d2 e2- :|2 "D" d3 d d4 ||
KATY BAR THE DOOR. AKA - "Katie, Bar the Door." American, Reel (cut time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA'BB'. From the banjo and fiddle playing of Grayson County, southwest Virginia, musician Roscoe Parish (1897-1984). The phrase "Katie, bar the door" is an Americanism that roughly means "Watch out, there's trouble ahead and you'd better be ready." The phrase can be traced in print to the latter 19th century, where it appears the newspaper The Louisiana Democrat, October, 1872:
The Custom House Packet, with the Custom House colored band, U.S. Marshal Packard, in command, with the old flag triumphantly kissing the breeze of old Red, the band playing "Katie, Bar The Door," and with waving rags touched the wharf and proceeded to land her precious cargo.
and in The Democrat, October, 1879:
To sum it all up, my advice to anyone thinking of going there would be "don’t," unless they have a pocketfull of the "rhino" which they can afford to lose. I saw it was "Katy bar the door" with me unless I skipped, and I lost no time in skipping.
There are several speculations about the origin of the phrase, some dating to incidents in the British Isles. William and Mary Morris’s book The Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins suggests that it derives from a traditional ballad, most probably the medieval Scots one usually entitled Get Up and Bar the Door,
The tune is usually played as an instrumental, although these words have been collected with it:
Katy bar your door,
Katy bar your door;
The Indians jumping all around your house,
Katy bar your door.
