Cindy (folk song)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Cindy"
("Cindy, Cindy")
Music by Traditional
Language English
Form Folk song

"Cindy" ("Cindy, Cindy") is a popular American Folk song. According to John Lomax, the song originated in North Carolina. It is familiar from the chorus:

Get along home, Cindy Cindy,
Get along home, Cindy Cindy,
Get along home, Cindy Cindy,
I'll marry you some day.

One of the earliest versions of "Cindy" is found in Anne Virginia Culbertson's collection of Negro folktales (At the Big House, where Aunt Nancy and Aunt 'Phrony Held Forth on the Animal Folks, Bobbs-Merrill, 1904) where one of her characters, Tim, "sang a plantation song named 'Cindy Ann'," the first verse and refrain of which are:

I'se gwine down ter Richmond,
I'll tell you w'a hit's for:
I'se gwine down ter Richmond,
Fer ter try an' end dis war.
An'-a you good-by, Cindy, Cindy
Good-by, Cindy Ann;
An'-a you good-by, Cindy, Cindy
I'se gwine ter Rappahan.[1]

As with many folk songs, each singer was free to add verses, and many did. Cindy was a particular favorite for this, with many ribald verses added, attesting to Cindy's amorous inclinations.

Benjamin Weisman, Dolores Fuller and Fred Wise wrote a version of "Cindy" called "Cindy, Cindy". This version is the familiar one recorded by such performers as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Warren Zevon and others. Dr. Mack Wilberg's choral arrangement of the piece was written for four-hand piano, double eight-part choirs, a string bass, xylophone, and a score of quintessential Americana instruments to supplement the melody during the arrangement's hoedown section. This arrangement is available for any choir to learn and perform, although Wilberg also wrote a special arrangement to be performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The choral parts are the same, but the accompaniment has been rewritten for full orchestra (specifically the Orchestra at Temple Square).

In the early and middle 20th century, Cindy was included in the songbooks used in many elementary school music programs as an example of folk music.

Contents

[edit] Some of the folk song verses

You ought to see my Cindy
She lives away down south
She's so sweet the honeybees
Swarm around her mouth.
The first time I saw Cindy
She was standing in the door.l
Her shoes and stockings in her hands,
Her clothes all over the floor.
I wish I were an apple
A-hangin on the tree
An' every time that Cindy passed
She'd take a bite o' me
She told me that she loved me
She called me Sugarplum
She drew her arms around me
I thought my time had come
She loved me on the mountainside
She loved me on the hill
And every time she said "I won't"
Her echo said "I will!"
She took me to the parlor
She cooled me with her fan
She said I was the prettiest thing
In the shape of mortal man
She loves me in the summertime
She loves me in the fall
If she don't love me all the time
I want no love at all.
My Cindy is a pretty girl
My Cindy is a peach;
She throws her arms around my neck
And hangs on like a leech.
If I had a pretty gal
I'd put her on a shelf;
Ev'ry time she smiled at me,
I'd jump right up myself.
Wish I had a needle and thread
Wish that I could sew
I'd sew that gal to my coat tails
And down the road we'd go

Chorus:

Get along home, Cindy Cindy
Get along home, Cindy Cindy
Get along home, Cindy Cindy
I'll marry you some day.
(or I'm gonna leave you now)

Some of the verses made fun of Cindy's appearance, painting her as having buck teeth, being bowlegged, while some painted her as a knockout. Here's an unusual verse about her eyes:

Cindy, she has one blue eye
She also has one brown
One eye sees the countryside
The other watches town

The theme of Cindy and religion had many variants. Often a singer would include more than one verse, especially when the singer was painting a vision of a lusty mountain girl struggling to conform to the ideals taught by the country circuit rider:

Now, Cindy's got religion,
She wheeled round and round
She got so full of glory
She knocked the preacher down
My Cindy's got religion,
She had it once before
When she heered my old banjo
She's the first one on the floor.
Cindy got religion
She really went to town;
Got so full of glory, Lord,
Shook her stockin's down.
My Cindy's got religion,
I'll tell you what she done:
She went up to the minister
Chawed her chewin' gum.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Culbertson, "How Mr. Terrapin Lost His Beard", pp. 1329-133.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Culbertson, Anne Virginia. "How Mr. Terrapin Lost His Beard" from The Ten Books of the Merrymakers Volume VII, pp. 1328-1335, edited by Marshall P. Wilder. New York: The circle Publishing Company (1909).

[edit] External links

 This folk song-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.