Topic: The Earliest Appearances of Archetypal Lyric Phrases

[Bunker Hill]

Thanks for that dj (and BH). I can push it back by a couple more years at least, as I recently noticed this while browsing through African American folklorist and Fisk University professor Thomas W. Talley's Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise and Otherwise. Talley's work was published in 1922 and he started work on it sometime around the end of WWI, though obviously much of the material he collected would be much older.

I have that very edition which I purchased in the 70s from the Poetry Society of London when they sold some of their library stock in the 70s. In 1991 Tennessee UP published a new, expanded version edited by Charles Wolfe. The Fattening Frogs entry notes:

A song by this name was recorded in the 1940s by a black string band called The Mobile Strugglers (cf Paul Oliver The Meaning Of The Blues (73-4), but except for the final line, that one seems to have little in common with this version. "Fattening frogs for snakes" is a proverbial expression of futility.

It wasn't until the late 90s that Document got around to the "vaudevillians", hence Wolfe's lack of reference to other versions.

[Bunker Hill]

I had completely overlooked the fact that during 1992 I transcribed the entire SBW Trumpet and Chess/Checker recordings (52 pages of it), this I've now resurrected from a floppy disk. Here's the two takes


FATTENING FROGS FOR SNAKES   Checker 8409    8 Feb 1957     

It took me a long time,
To find out my mistake,
It took me a long time, (a long time)
To find out my mistake, (it sure did man !)
But I betcha my bottom dollar,
I'm not fattenin' no more frogs for snakes.

I found out my downfall,
Back in nineteen and thirty eight, (I started checkin')
I found out my downfall,
From nineteen and thirty eight,
I'm tellin' all of my friends,
I'm not fattenin' no more frogs for snakes.
(Alright now !)

Yes ! 'til nineteen fifty seven,
I got to correct all of my mistakes,
Whoa man ! Nineteen and fifty seven,
I've got to correct all of my mistakes,
I'm tellin' my friends, includin' my wife,
And everybody else, I'm not fattenin' no more frogs for snakes.

FATTENING FROGS FOR SNAKES (Alt. Tk.) Blues Ball LP 2004

It took me a long time,
To find out my mistake,
It took me a long time, (a long time)
To find out my mistakes,
But I betcha my bottom dollar,
I won't fatten no more frogs for snakes.

I found out my downfall,
Back in nineteen and thirty eight, (A long time ago, ain't it boys ?)
I found out my downfall,
Back in nineteen and thirty eight,
Yeah ! 'tils nineteen fifty seven,
I'm not fattenin' no more frogs for snakes.
(Go with me ! Go with me now !)

Yes ! 'til nineteen fifty seven,
I'm correcting all of my mistakes,
Yes ! 'til nineteen fifty seven,
I'm correcting all of my mistakes,
I'm promising everybody,
Including my friends and my wife,
I'm not fattenin' no more frogs for snakes.

[Rivers]

None of which helps me understand exactly what the phrase means, or am I the only one mystified by what means "fattenin' frogs for snakes"? I have had a very sheltered upbringing.

[dj]

"Fattening frogs for snakes" is literally fattening frogs with the expectation that you're going to catch them and eat them (well, eat their legs), only to have water snakes eat them first.  So metaphorically, it's creating any good situation (say a wife and a home) that someone else (a back door man) will get the benefit of.

[Rivers]

Thanks dj, I did not know that there were cultures other than the French who included frogs in the diet. Probably came down from Canada with the Acadians, yes / no, or maybe native American?

Tastes like chicken, I have no doubt.

[Gumbo]

Here in Ireland it's akin to 'growing lettuces for slugs' ....

[Rivers]

Or in Texas, fattening zuccini squash for cutworms. I can relate to that. Doesn't really scan so well as a lyric unfortunately. Thanks for the insights people.

[uncle bud]

Reading the notes to the excellent new release from Old Hat Records devoted entirely to songs about chickens and related fowl called Cluck Old Hen - A Barnyard Serenade, I noticed that the entry for Riley Puckett's "Riley's Hen House Door" points out that the song, a version of the Who Broke the Lock theme, is based on the 1893 song, "Who Picked the Lock" by vaudeville composers Monroe and Mack (real names Edwin James Pyle and William S. Keller).

So all of those "who broke the lock" references would trace back at least to this composition, visible in sheet music form here: https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/30330

[dj]

Teddy Darby's 1933 description of a coffin as "wooden kimono, satin-lined and dressed in tin" in his song Don't Like The Way You Do appears in Bert Williams' 1910 recording of the song Something You Don't Expect. 

[uncle bud]

Cool. I wonder how many Williams lines made it into the early blues. You would think there would be a fair amount of influence given his profile.

[dj]

Not exactly a lyric archetype, but John Hurt's "Good Morning Carrie" is essentially the chorus of a song of the same name sung by Bert Williams and George Walker in their musical Sons Of Ham and recorded by the duo for Victor in 1901.

[cru423]

When did the blues phrase,

"I love my baby and I'm going to tell the world I do"

first come into blues music?

On record I've got Willie Brown in, "Make me a Pallet on the Floor", Leadbelly in "Big Fat Woman", then later in the 50s Elmore James in "Dark and Dreary" and "Make my Dreams come True". After that a bunch of blues/rock icons adopted it. I'm sure there's more early appearances...

[banjochris]

If I remember rightly, "I'll tell the world" was popularized in the military in WWI, so my guess would be around then.

[cru423]

The Willie Brown recording is the first recorded version that I know of. After the popularization of electric blues after WWII it appears indiscriminately in places. Elmore James,  Jimmy Reed ("Tell the World I Do"), Paul Butterfield ("Our Love is Driftin'") and Stevie Ray Vaughan ("Hug You, Squeeze You"). Some more may come to mind later.

[banjochris]

Charlie Patton sings it in Magnolia Blues/When Your Way Gets Dark plus I know I've heard it in older stuff.