Cotton Eye Joe, what's your opinion about that song?

[Dave Bowman]

While browsing on YT I stumbled across this song, the 1994 cover, and wanted to know more about it (not familiar with it at all until watching the vid). There are many interpretations of the meaning of the song and it's a very old one first sang by African Americans since at least the 19th century. One theory is that Cotton Eye Jo had cataracts, so white cloudy eyes, like cotton. It doesn't seem likely though. What you do you think?

Here's the vid I watched:

[Gore1FL]

1. It's about a drunk guy.

My advice is to read the lyrics.

[Dave Bowman]

3. That's one interpretation, the guy wasn't only drunk but was blinded by bad moonshine.

[Gore1FL]

15. I always assume Cotton-eyed Joe was the singer of the song when the singer was drunk.

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe (My Drinking)
I'd been married long time ago
Where did you come from (The Bottle), where did you go? (Sobriety)
Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?

[Dave Bowman]

17. It definitely has something to do with booze. 🙂

[ancianita]

2. Not much. It's from slave days and proves the love-filled ignorant can still be betrayed and sing their pain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton-Eyed_Joe

Haven't thought of it as a classic, just because it's old.

[maxsolomon]

4. Its about cataracts

Back then, there was nothing to be done.

[Dave Bowman]

6. I believe that it's one of the most likely explanation. Joe had cataracts.

That's a nasty condition, diabetic people have a high rate of cataracts if not treated soon enough.

[markodochartaigh]

13. Actually,

cataracts have been removed for millenia. From the Code of Hammurabi:

"If a physician has treated a man of rank with a bronze lancet for a severe wound, and caused the nobleman to die, or has removed a cataract from the eye of a nobleman using a bronze lancet, and caused the loss of the eye, — let his hands be cut off.

[If he so treat a slave] and the slave die, he shall render back slave for slave."

Although in 1800's US treatment was not widely available I'm sure.

[Marthe48]

5. I wasn't familiar with it till I started watching plank dance workouts

on Reels on Facebook.
Some of the men who do the routines use Cotton Eye Joe.

[maxsolomon]

8. Plank dance workouts?

wonders never cease...

[Marthe48]

10. Reels comes up randomly

And there was a guy using a hula hoop. He was horizontal between his kitchen island and the counter. I think that was done to a sea chanty, Billy O'Tea. I'd never seen anything like it. Whew! I liked it and since then, others come up. Most are floor workouts. There's a young woman who does them, too.
One of the men hang by their hands from a bar and do dance moves to Cotton Eye Joe.

[GladysKravitz]

7. It grates on me.

I've only heard the beginning a few times. I can't get through it.

[Dave Bowman]

16. Lol, yeah it's not my favorite song either. But I have to admit that it can be an earworm that's hard to get rid of.

[GladysKravitz]

20. You got that right.

It's been in my head since I saw the OP, and I've never heard it all the way through.

[hamsterjill]

9. I grew up in South Texas and this was the first "line dance"

I don't remember the song we danced to every having someone singing. It was instrumental only.

[Cirsium]

11. Awful

You asked for opinions, yes?

Traditional music does not necessarily have anything to do with "red necks," so even the parody doesn't work. There were traditional regional styles throughout North America, not just in so- called "Appalachia." The commercialization, bastardization and expropriation of traditional culture is part and parcel with the general colonial and neo-colonial theft of culture, land, resources, community, identity, and labor. so I don't see it as fun or as benign. But anything goes when there is a buck to be made.

Canadian fiddle the late GrahamTownsend:

Square dance orchestra:

[Dave Bowman]

18. I see the remake/cover as some type of cultural appropriation.

Thanks for the vids!

[markodochartaigh]

12. I always thought that it was an

old Irish tune. The lyrics don't make a lot of sense, but so many of those tunes don't, at least without specialized knowledge. If you are drunk you can't see properly, like looking through eyes made of cotton balls. Just like "he is blind-drunk" in English, there is "tá sé dallta" in Irish.

[Dave Bowman]

14. Yeah, I can see it could have been an Irish song.

[Polybius]

19. Fun little 90's cheese song

There were tons in that decade.

[JustAnotherGen]

27. It's up there

With Here Comes The Hotstepper, I'm Too Sexy and Tubthumping.

[Polybius]

31. And Rico Suave

[Dave Bowman]

32. "I'm Too Sexist for my Job..."

?feature=shared

[Noodleboy13]

21. Played Old Time music with the fiddler in our Irish band. Fun, but some song titles......

Show the age in which they were written. Rhys taught me a lot about old time music. I'm a Bodhráin olayer myself, Rhys knew fiddle and banjo. "Granny does your dog bite" and "Leg shy" were some of our favorite reels. Leg shy has a much longer title, but we knew better than to use it.

Peace,
Noodleboy

[haele]

22. Always thought it was about a moon-shiner.

Just like "My girl loves a Hog-Eye Man" is about a girl who hung around with the men who worked on the flat boat barges, apparently known as "Hog Eye" boats in some areas of Ohio and Kentucky during the mid 1800's.
My grandpappy played bluegrass banjo and delta blues saxephone during WWII while he worked admin for the Navy in California. Then he played backup musician after the war when he the evenings off after work, so mom and uncle learned a lot of interesting folk songs. Pretty good for an immigrant kid who worked coal mines in Pennsylvania when he was 8.

[Dave Bowman]

25. My grandfather died at the age of 101 going on 102. He was the cement that held ou family together. He worked incredibly

hard. My poor grandma was always pregnant, she had 11 kids before dying at the age of 48. Those were horrible times and just like everyone here I don't want to go back. The mines were the worst.

[murpheeslaw]

28. There was a town called Hogeye in Texas

Hogeye was a derogatory name deep water sailors had for bargemen on the rivers. The town was calls Hogeye because that was the only song the musicians knew to play at the Saturday night dances. The original lyrics are not PC but for singing they can be adjusted.

The town was east of Austin on the Colorado River. The railroad said they would not lay tracks that close to the Colorado River. So the town up and moved north up a hill to be built around the new railroad crossing.

Every fall Elgin has a Hogeye Festival; but they NEVER play the song! There is still Hogeye Road in the area.

[Wonder Why]

23. All I know is that it's hell to dance to. I gave up. My wife (80) isn't bad at it.

[BlueTsunami2018]

24. I don't think there's a negative strong enough to describe my feelings for this musical atrocity.

It’s safe to say that I don’t care for it.

[Dave Bowman]

26. Yeah, catchy song but I find it disturbing.

[LudwigPastorius]

29. I hate it.

...but, just because I've had to play it too many times.

Frankly, I've never heard anybody perform it with the original (racist) lyric. It's just a stupid song that people who can't dance, dance to.

[lees1975]

30. The "Rednex" version is electronically jazzed up over the original.

The original is a twangy, banjo and fiddle version that is more suited to the Texas Two Step. It includes the rythmic chant of "What you say? Bullshit!" in the lyrics.

First time I heard it was in a skating rink in Clute, Texas, which was jammed by a bunch of Baptist church youth groups after Sunday night services, skating to the music, and yelling out the lyrics.

[Dave Bowman]

33. The "original" go back to the 19th century and is far better, I agree

Man, I miss skating rinks. Incredibly good memories.

[GaYellowDawg]

34. It FUCKING SUCKS.

If demons shat concentrated evil, and that shit could vomit even more concentrated evil, and that vomit could shit the purest essence of evil, if that shit decided to sing, it'd be "Cotton Eyed Joe."