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GREEN SALLY UP
This page contains examples
& comments about the game song "Green Sally Up".
**
My thanks to Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist, for giving
me a set of the four disc CD Sounds of the South. "Green
Sally Up" is found on Disc 4 of that CD set. The words for what I am
calling "version #1" of this rhyme are my transcription of that song from that source.
**
I would also like to thank Cocojams' reader Mechtild F for submitting an
electronic message about the song "Green Sally Up". As a result of
MechtildF's message, I became aware that there was a Moby song that
included the same recording of "Green Sally Up" that is found on Lomax's
CD Sounds Of The South.
**
In addition, I would like to thank Dicho, Malcolm Douglas, Q, and other
members of the online folk & blues discussion forum, Mudcat, for their
discussion of another children's rhyme that stimulated my thinking about a
possible source and an earlier meaning for lines in the rhyme "Green Sally
Up". See below for a posting of that rhyme and my speculations about the
original meaning of certain lines found in "Green Sally Up".
**
click here to submit examples or
commentary about "Green Sally Up" and/or about other English language children's
game songs & rhymes.
**
Versions of "Green Sally Up"
Version #1
Green Sally up.
Green Sally down.
last one squat got to tear the ground.
Ole {Oh?} Miss Lucy dead and gone.
Left me here to weep and moan.
If you hate it fold your arms.
If you love it clap your hands.
Source: found on Disc 4 of
Alan Lomax's Sounds of the South, A Musical Journey from the Georgia
Sea Isles to the Mississippi Delta. {Atlantic 787496-2; 1993}. Jesse
Pratcher, Mattie Gardner, and Maey Gardner are listed as the singers.
**
Version #2
Green Sally up, Green Sally down
Green Sally bake her possum brown.
Asked my mama for fifteen cents
to see the elephant jump the fence.
He jumped so high, he touched the sky
He never got back till the fourth of July.
You see that house upon that hill,
That's where me and my baby live.
Oh the rabbit in the hash come a-stepping in the dash,
With his long-tailed coat and his beaver on.
Source:
Step It Down Games, Plays, Songs And Stories From Afro-American Heritage.
This book about African American children's songs from the Georgia Sea
Isle was co-authored by Bessie Jones and Bess Lomax Hawes
**
Comments About Version #1
In the CD notes for "Green Sally Up",
Lomax indicates that this is "a black children's
singing game performed by a group of women in Como, Miss. The slaves have
passed on to a modern generation of children a whole literature of
children's songs which resemble the familiar English Ring Around the
Rosie, but which were gayer and more syncopated."
-snip-
Here is my description of the song from the "Sounds Of The South" CD:
This song has a rather slow tempo.
The same verses are repeated again and again. The only musical accompaniment for this song
is
handclapping and foot stomping.
**
In 2006, a Cocojams reader sent me an electronic message about the song
"Green Sally Up". As a result of that message, I learned that the "Green
Sally Up" song that is found on Lomax's CD was used as background to
Moby's song "Flowers". Here is that message:
"Hello, perhaps you could help me with the meaning of the lyrics of
the song "Flower" that was recently remade by the musician Moby. The words
of the first verse: "Green sally up and green sally down, lift and squat
gotta tear the ground. Old miss lucy's dead and gone, left me here to weep
and moan." My questions: Why is the song called "Flower"? Who or what is
"green sally"? Is the song a sort of children play or ring game song?
Thank you very much for your help!
-Mechtild F. ; 10/3/2006
-snip-
I wrote a response to Mechtild F, and posted it on a page that is now
retired from this website. I have also retracted some of my comments in my
original response to Mechtild F, including my opinion that "Green Sally
Up" might have originally been a 19th century or earlier African American
dance song. I no longer believe that. Instead, I think that "Green Sally
Up" was a children's game song which might, in part, have similar origins
as the well known British children's game song "Ring Around The Rosie".
But more on that later. Let me first share my thoughts on the meaning of
the words of this version of "Green Sally Up."
The "green Sally up/green Sally down" lyrics refers to the song's
performance activity. The performers squat down {stoop, or bend down} and
then stand back up. In this context, the phrase "tear the ground" probably means "touch the
ground".
I believe that
"green" in the song "Green Sally" is used as a descriptor
of a naive, inexperienced
woman. References
to a young woman being a "green girl" are found in a number of literary
sources in the 19th and the early 20th century. This descriptor may have
come from
references to a green ear of corn. A green ear
of corn is un-ripened and a "green girl" is one who is not yet
knowledgeable about the ways of the world.
Undoubtedly, "Green Sally Up" was sung and performed for the sake of
entertainment. However, I believe that embedded in the song is a more serious, somewhat
hidden message that addresses the attitudes and feelings of enslaved Black
people towards their White mistress. In the 18th and 19th century America, "Miss" was a title that was reserved for
White
women. In "Green Sally Up", "Miss Lucy" was probably the slave master's wife.
However, she could also have been another White female.
"Old Miss Lucy dead and gone” refers to Miss
Lucy's death. The lines “If you love it clap your hands/if you hate it
fold your arms". may have been a coded way for these enslaved people to
share their true feelings about Miss Lucy's death. If Miss Lucy was a mean ole woman who left the slaves to
weep and moan {over their terrible hardships and not Miss Lucy's death}, then there
was bound to have been whole lot of handclapping celebrating Miss Lucy's
passing.
This theme of enslaved Black people commenting without any sadness about
the death of their White masters and mistresses is found in other examples
of 19th century Black secular slave dance songs. One widely known folk
song that ends with a Black slave feeling emotions other than sadness when
his master dies is "Jimmy Crack Corn" {also known as "The Blue-Tail Fly"}.
Moby appears to have used
a clip from that Sounds of The South CD in the recording which he named
"Flowers". Initially I had thought that Moby's naming his song
"Flowers" was because "Green Sally Up" was connected in some way to the
old British children's game song "Water flowers".* But I was on real shaky
ground with this speculation. The only connection between those two songs
is that there is mention of a woman or a girl dying in both of them. So
why did Moby name his song "Flowers"? Maybe he knew about this old
rhyme:
A ring, a ring, a raney
Buttermilk and tansy,
Flower here and flower there,
And all- squat!
Source-W. W. Newell, Games and Songs of American Children, 1883,
(1903), Dover reprint.
-snip-
That rhyme was mentioned on a Mudcat Discussion Forum thread about the
children's game song "Ring Around The Rosie". There's more on that
discussion thread below in the section of this page that I've titled
"Speculative Connections Between "Green Sally Up" And "Ring Around The
Rosie".
Did Moby know these rhymes and name his song "Flowers"? I don't know. But
if that's the reason for that song's name, maybe Moby's saw the connection
between "Green Sally Up" and "Ring Around The Rosie" long before I
did..
*The words to the game song "Water Flower" are
posted on Cocojams' Children's Game Song page.
**
Here's a link to a YouTube music video of the song "Green Sally Up" which
was recorded in 2000 by Moby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDKkoH1ckHo Note that video is
erroneously titled "Bring Sally Up." This version sounds exactly like the
Sound of The South version.
Also, click
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/moby/flower.html for the lyrics to the Moby
song "Flowers"..
In addition, here's a
website about Moby's song "Flowers" {"Green Sally Up"} that include my
theories about the meaning of those lyrics: :
http://everything2.com/title/FLOWER
**
Comments About Version #2 of Green Sally Up
The game
song "'Green Sally Up" as given by Bessie Jones in the book
Step It Down seems to be much more
syncopated than the Sounds of The South version. The "Step It Down" version of
"Green Sally Up" is composed by combining floating lines and verses from
"Miss Mary Mack", "I Love Coffee, I Love Tea" and other African American
children's rhymes. As such, besides their first lines, the "Step It Down"
version has very little in common with the "Sounds Of The South" version
of "Green Sally Up". For that reason I think that the "Sounds Of
The South" version of "Green Sally Up" is older than the "Step It Down"
version.
In the
book Step It Down,
Bess Lomax Hawes indicates that "The last couplet 'Oh, the rabbit in the hash'
may be repeated over and over, either at a steady tempo or speeded up as much as
three times faster. The 'Green Sally" couplet functions as a refrain, and may be
put in anywhere you want it".
Unfortunately,
"Green Sally Up" is not listed in the tracks of the Rounder record of
"Step It Down". I don't have a copy of that CD yet but intend to
purchase it. [Click on this link for more information about that CD:
http://www.rounder.com/index.php?id=album.php&catalog_id=3576]
However, the description of the song as given in the book makes me
think that Bessie Jones is describing a version of this song that is much faster than the Sounds of the South
version.
**
A Speculative Connection Between "Green
Sally Up" and "Ring Around The Rosie"
While reading an old Mudcat
discussion Forum thread about the children's rhyme "Ring Around The
Rosie", I happened up a posting of a rhyme whose words, in part, remind me
of some of the lines to "Green Sally Up". Here's that rhyme:
Ring around a rosey, pocket full o' posies,
Light bread, Sweet bread, Squat!
Guess who she told me, tralalalala,
Mister Red was her lover, tralalalala,
If you love him, hug him!
If you hate him, stomp!
Source: Lomax and Lomax, 1939 Southern States Collecting Trip, from
Wiergate, Texas: (Sec. 13, Merryville, LA and vicinity)
This rhyme was posted on this Mudcat thread:
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=49672#750915 "Ring Around
The Rosey's History??" on 7/18/2002 by Dicho.
-snip-
The last two lines of that rhyme [which I'll call "Louisiana Ring Around
The Rosie"] remind me of the lines "If you hate it fold your arms/
If you love it clap your hands" in
version #1 of "Green Sally Up"
as given above. Also, version #1 of "Green Sally Up" and that Louisiana
version of "Ring Around The Rosie" both include the word "squat".
Furthermore, the phrase "Light Bread Sweet Bread" portion of the Louisiana
"Ring Around The Rosie" reminds me of version #2's line "Green Sally bake her possum brown".
Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch.
The ending command "squat" appears in a number of "Ring Around Rosie"
rhymes. The words to one such rhyme, "A Ring, a Ring, A Raney", * are
given above on this page. And, as you will recall, the word "squat
is mentioned in the Sounds of The South version of "Green Sally
Up".
Here's another version of
"Ring Around The Rosie" from the American South that includes the word
"squat":
Ring around the rosie,
Squat among the posies,
Ring around the roses,
Pockets full of posies,
One, two, three- *squat!
-snip-
"A Ring, A Ring, A Raney"
and the last example are both from W. W. Newell, Games and Songs of
American Children, 1883, (1903), Dover reprint.
If the African American game song "Green Sally Up" originally had as it's
source the British game song "Ring Around The Rosie" ,then it eventually
became an entirely different song-as seen by the "Step It Down" version.
Of course, any "early" connection between these two game songs is
speculation on my part. But I believe that it's worth a thought or two.
See the comments in that
Mudcat thread whose link is provided about the real meaning of the
game song "Ring Around The Rosie". Hint: It's not really about the
Plague or the Black Death.
*"Ring"
here means "circle", and probably refers to the game players moving in a
circle while holding hands. I'm not sure what "raney" means.
**
Green Color Up
Here's a game song
that I wrote that was inspired by the song "Green Sally Up":
Group: Green
color up.
Green color down.
Green color all around the town.
If you have on green, just raise your hand.
If you do not, just fold your arms.
Caller: Red!
Group Red color up.
Red
color down
Red color all around the town.
If you have on red, just raise your hand.
If you do not, just fold your arms.
(The
caller calls out another color. People wearing that color come into the
circle, the others quickly leave and the group repeats the song)
© Azizi
Powell 1997
In 1997, I introduced the song "Green Sally Up" to a
predominately African American group of children ages 5-12 years old,
These children participated in Alafia Children's Ensemble, an after-school
game song group that I had started. The children in that group didn't seem
understand the words to the song, and didn't seem to like the game song's
movements. But I liked the song, and so I kept thinking of ways to update
it. In subsequent sessions, I introduced several versions of the song to
the group, but none of them worked.
Finally, at one group session, Carol Williams, an Alafia parent and staff
person suggested changing the words of the song to refer to different
colors. I played with that idea, and the song "Green Color Up" is the result. I'm
pleased to say that this song "works", and children like its easy to
remember words and movements. “Green Color Up” is a singing game that
doesn’t have any winners or losers. It is a good way to help young
children learn their colors and is a good way to help develop and
reinforce group spirit and interaction skills. Besides, it is fun to play!
Here are the directions for playing "Green Color Up":
Participants form a circle. Participants can be mixed ages of boys and girls as well as adults. Participants don’t hold hands.
Someone is designated as the leader. The leader’s job is to randomly call out the name of a color each
time the song is repeated. The
only color whose call-out order is fixed, is “green” (unless no one
present is wearing green). The
leader may walk around the group while the song is being performed or may
join the group forming the ring of the circle (the outer part of the
circle).
When the leader calls out the color “green”, all those who are
wearing “green” can either go into the middle of the circle or stay where
they are in the circle’s ring.
Everyone then sings the song together.
Everyone claps their hands while they are singing and performs the
motions that the song’s words call for (for example: bending down when
the song says “down”, stretching your arms up when the song says
“up”, and turning around when the song says “around”}.
When the leader calls out another color, those people in the middle
quickly rejoin the circle’s ring. At
the same time, people who are wearing the new color that the leader has
just called enter the middle of the circle.
The game
usually ends with the color green.
-snip-
Portions of these comments are included on Cocojams' Games Children's Play
page.
****
click here to submit examples or
commentary about "Green Sally Up" and/or about other English language children's
game songs & rhymes.
****
Also, don't forget to visit Jambalaya!,
Cocojams' page for readers' comments & questions.
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Enjoy!
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