Digital Tradition Mirror

Blue-Tail Fly

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Blue-Tail Fly

When I was young I used to wait
On my master and give him his plate
And pass the bottle when he got dry
And brush away the blue-tail fly.

cho: Give me cracked corn and I don't care *
     Give me cracked corn and I don't care
     Give me cracked corn and I don't care
     My Master's gone away

He'd ride around in the afternoon
I'd follow after with a hickory broom
His pony being rather shy
When bitten by a blue-tail fly.

    CHORUS

One day he rode about the farm
The flies so numerous they did swarm
One chanced to bite him on the thigh
The devil take the blue-tail fly

The pony run, he jump, he pitch
He throw'd my master in the ditch
He died and the jury wondered why
The verdict was the blue-tail fly

    CHORUS

They laid him neath a 'simmon tree
His epitaph is there to see
Beneath this rock I'm forced to lie
The victim of the blue-tail fly.

    CHORUS

     note: as sung by The Highgraders, San Francisco, early 60s -
the traditional chorus, which makes no sense, is "Jimmie Crack
Corn"; I prefer "Gimmie crack'd corn" - whiskey] ES
     Could be. Also might not be. Logic often leads to fakelore. RG
DT #669
Laws I19
ES

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!