Roll the Woodpile Down
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Mandolin Tablature
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Standard Notation
Mandolin Tablature
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
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Lyrics:
Way down south where the cocks do crow
'Way down in Florida
The gals all dance to the old banjo
And we'll roll the woodpile down!
Chorus:
Rollin'! Rollin'! Rollin' the whole world 'round
That brown girl o' mine's down the Georgia Line
And we'll roll the woodpile down!
When I was a young man in me prime
I'd take them yaller gals two at a time.
Chorus
We'll roll him high and we'll roll him low
We'll heave him up and away we'll go.
Chorus
Oh rouse and bust 'er is the cry
A black man's wage is never high.
Chorus
O Curly goes on the old ran-tan
O Curly's just a down-east man.
Chorus
O one more heave and that will do
We're the bullies for to kick 'er through.
Chorus
"Roll the Woodpile Down" is a pumping or capstan shanty. Hugill belived it to be<br> a sea-going version of the southern Black song "Haul the Woodpile Down" and that<br> perhaps being one of the many river men songs that reached deep water, it was<br> popular right up to the end of the time of sail.<br> It probably originated in the West Indies. One of Hugill's sources remembers it<br> sung on board as late as 1920.<br> It appears in the Roud Folk Song Index as #4443.<br> It was printed in Stan Hugill's Shanties from the Seven Seas (1987).<br>
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