Kicking Mule
 


Citation

“Kicking Mule,” Appalachian State University Libraries Digital Collections, accessed November 25, 2024, https://am.library.appstate.edu/items/show/31645.


Comments

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Title

Kicking Mule

Description

This item is part of the I. G. Greer Folksong Collection which consists of more than 300 individual song titles and their variants as collected by Isaac Garfield Greer (1881-1967) from informants, primarily in Ashe, Wilkes and Watauga counties. The collection includes manuscripts, typescript transcriptions produced by Dr. Greer’s clerical staff, and handwritten musical notations. Songs range from traditional Child Ballads, traditional English and Scottish ballads as well as their American variants, to 19th century popular music to musical compositions of local origin.

Subject

Minstrel music
Nonsense songs
Sleighs--Songs and music
Mules--Songs and music

Alternative Title

Liza Jane, Who a, Mule

Publisher

W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University

Contributor

Greer, I. G. (Isaac Garfield), 1881-1967

Format

PDF

Language

English

Type

Text

Transcription

The Kicking Mule

Once there was a man, his name was Simon Slick.
He had a mule with dreamy eyes, and how that mule could kick.
He’d shut one eye and switch his tail and greet you with a smile.
He’d gently raise you from the ground and kick you half a mile.

Chorus
Whoa, mule, I tell you,
Whoa, mule, I say.
Keep your seat, Miss Liza Jane,
And hold on to the sleigh.

I hitched that mule one morning to take my girl a ride,
He kicked both hind feet over the shafts, and kicked her in the side.
He kicked the feathers from a goose, he broke the elephant’s back.
He stopped the Texas railway train, and kicked it off the track.

O hear them sleighbells ringing, the snow is falling fast.
So with a mule with room for two, just watch us going past.
And don’t get scared at nothing, what you hear or what you see,
And, Liza, I’ll stay with this mule, and you must stay with me.

Just see them snowflakes flying. Lookout. Let them sail.
Watch them ears of his’n and see him wag his tail.
Going to the preacher’s, Liza, you keep cool,
Hain’t got time to kiss you now, I’m busy with this mule.

Little bee came flying around, came flying around the well,
This little mule gave him one good kick, his head began to swell.
Took him down to the blacksmith’s shop, and hitched him all alone,
He kicked both hindfeet till he died, and oh, how he did groan.

Scholarly Classification

Brown, Blackface Minstrel, Negro Songs -- 513

File name

113_KickingMule_ocr

Comments

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