[Dixielandjazz] lyrics for Hooking Cow Blues

[Audrey VanDyke]

Here's the scoop from the sheet music for Hooking Cow Blues.  The title 
is The Hooking Cow Blues (A Texas Jazz).  The credits say "Words and 
Music by Douglas Williams, Jazz and Blues by W.C. Handy"  Published by 
Pace and Handy in 1917.  The cover is a cowboy motif, roping a cow.  Out 
in Texas with the hooking cows/ Is where I always long and always crave 
to be/ Tell me honey do you ever think of me?/ I have told you these 
same things before/ the way you treat me honey I will have to go/ if you 
love me you will have to tell me so/ You'll have to tell me so.  (second 
verse) When a woman sees the man she loves/ Her mind rocks like a ship 
upon a stormy sea/ All I want is someone just to hear my plea/ My best 
friend done turned his back on me/ And if his heart aint iron it must be 
marble stone/ I just hate the day I left my home// I left my happy 
home.  (chorus) For the Hooking cow blues/ Oh those Texas cow Blues/ 
Ring in my ear/ I seem to hear them dancing, prancing out on the ranch/ 
Oh those Hooking cow Blues, Oh those Texas cow Blues, I've surely got 
the Hooking cow Blues.
Then the eight bar jazz finale has one bar imitating a Texas Steer, one 
bar with the spoken words "What's That I hear," and another bar where 
you speak the words A Texas Steer.  It's an odd ending. Re the lyrics: - 
no wonder it was recorded as an instrumental.

Since it has a Texas theme, some of you might be wondering if the 
scoring has any early boogie bass.  There is some sort of interesting 
rocking eight to the bar that goes back and forth from left hand to 
right hand, but it doesn't look like the classic boogie pattern.  I'll 
leave that to the musicologists to figure out.

The music is a four-bar intro, two bar vamp til ready, two verses, a 
chorus, and at the end a simple eight bar section titled "Jazz".  So 
maybe Handy wrote the last eight bars or maybe the intro and the last eight.

If anybody wants the music, email me your address and I'll mail out a copy.

Audrey Van Dyke