Annotation:Old Grey Goose (2)

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OLD GREY GOOSE [2]. Old-Time, Breakdown. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABABCCA. Mike Yates (2002) identifies "Old Grey Goose [2]" as a minstrel song, "De Old Grey Goose," published and possibly written by A. Fiot in 1844, the year it was published in Philadelphia. The printing contained the note that it was "sung by Aken, the celebrated banjoist." The Christie Minstrels picked up the tune, for four years later it was recorded as being in their repertoire. Dan Tate, of Fancy Gap, Carroll County, Virginia, sang these verses to Yates in 1979:

Johnny Gordon lost his cow,
And where do you reckon he found her?
He found her up that rocky branch,
With a hundred buzzards around her.

Chorus: Look here, look there,
Look away over yander;
Don't you see that old grey goose,
A-smiling at that gander.

Johnny Gordon lost his wife,
And where do you reckon he found her?
He found her up that rocky branch,
With a hundred men around her.

Yates asks comparison of the above with "Saturday Night (2)," and verses are similar to a Mother Goose rhyme "Saturday Night I Lost My Wife."

Source for notated version: Ford (Traditional Music in America), 1940; p. 49.

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Musical Traditions, MTCD 321-2, Dan Tate (et al) - "Far on the Mountain, Vols. 1&2" (2002).

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