Annotation:Old Grey Mare Came Tearing Out of the Wilderness (The)
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OLD GREY MARE CAME TEARING OUT OF THE WILDERNESS, THE. AKA and see "Out of the Wilderness," "Old Abe Lincoln Came Out of the Wilderness," "Johnny Stole a Ham," "Old Yeller Dog," "Old Blind Dog," "White Horse (2) (The)." Old-Time, Breakdown. USA. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The music was first appeared in print (as "Down in Alabam") in 1858 published by one of Bryant's Minstrels, J. Warner, but it is likely that the tune is older than that (since it closely resembles a contemporary revivalist hymn--they may have had a common folk ancestor). Bayard (1981) calls it a good example of a popular tune that became traditional (or, if it was a traditional tune reworked by Warner, then a folk tune which became a popular one, which again reverted to folk form). Mark Wilson relates that a parody figured prominently in the famous Lincoln-Douglas campaign of 1860, probably the "Old Abe Lincoln Came Out of the Wilderness" version popular in Civil War times. The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Related tunes are "Old Blind Dog" and "Old Yeller Dog Came Trottin' Through the Meeting House." Georgia fiddler Earl Johnson called the tune "Old Grey Mare Kicking Out of the Wilderness." Arizona fiddler Kenner C. Kartchner remembered the tune as a hoedown in the Southwest, c. 1900.
Collector R.P. Christeson gathered this 'floating' verse, sung to the tune in Missouri:
Danced with a gal with a hole in her stocking
And her hell kept a-rocking (x2). .... [Christeson]
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle), 1981; No. 271A-B, p. 228 (appears as "Out of the Wildernes"). R.P. Christeson (Old Time Fiddlers Repertory, vol. 1), 1973; p. 101.
Recorded sources: Recorded Anthology of American Music, 1978, Obed Pickard (1927) - "Traditional Southern Instrumental Styles."