• Home
  • About Vi
    • Bio
      • Short Bio
      • Full Bio
    • Resume
    • Testimonials
    • Fiddle Lessons
    • Workshops
  • Projects
    • Fritto Misto
    • The Band
    • Fiddle Whamdiddle
    • String Theory Project
    • New Tune Challenge
  • Blog
    • Fiddle Tune a Day
    • Quick Tip of The Week
    • Videos
    • Workshops
  • Shop
    • Albums
    • Singles
    • Digital Downloads
      • Armadillo On a Hot Tin Roof
      • Fiddle Tune a Day
      • I’d Love to Live in Loveland – Digital Download
      • Long Time Comin’
      • Old School Old Time
      • Someone Like You
      • ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
    • Books
    • Sheet Music
    • Tickets
    • Violins
  • Calendar
  • Contact
    • YouTube
    • Facebook
    • Linkedin
    • Twitter

Vi Wickam

Champion Fiddler, Inspired Performer

You are here: Home / Fiddling / Fiddle Tune a Day / Boil Them Cabbage Down – Fiddle Tune a Day – Day 109

April 20, 2012

Boil Them Cabbage Down – Fiddle Tune a Day – Day 109

I used to HATE Boil Them Cabbbage Down! When I was a kid, my dad had me play it ALL the time. Every concert we did, every time I practiced. It was painful.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am not good with repetition in general. My parents signed me up for suzuki violin when I was 5, and after a couple of months of Twinkle Twinkle, I was done with it.

Boil Them Cabbage nearly became the fiddle equivalent of Twinkle. At some point, I told my dad that I wasn’t going to play it anymore, and I didn’t for years. I remember hearing Dick Barrett play a really cool tune sitting out in front of the Weiser High School and asking him what it was. He said it was Biol Them Cabbage Down. I thought that surely he was kidding me. This song was so much cooler than the tune I learned as a beginner. I didn’t really learn the tune at that time, but it started to grow on me.

I think it was 1998 when I got the Junebug on a Barbwire – a Jam Session recording of Major Franklin (picked it up at Weiser from a protected fiddle source). 😉 And, I loved the way Major played Boil Them Cabbage. The whole album was some of the coolest breakdown fiddling that I had ever heard. And so I learned the new/old version of Boil Them Cabbage, and I still play it similarly to how I learned it from that recording.

I recorded this at the Sylvandale Guest Ranch booth at the Loveland Business Expo.

 

Learn to play Boil Them Cabbage Down on Fiddle here

 

Bile Them Cabbage Down according to Fiddler’s Companion

BILE THEM CABBAGE DOWN. AKA ‑ “Boil Them Cabbage Down,” “Bake Them Hoecakes Brown.” AKA and see “Carve Dat Possum [1],” “Possum Pie.” Old‑Time, Breakdown. USA; Oklahoma, Arkansas, southwestern Pa., northeast Alabama. D Major (Bayard, Thede): A Major (Beisswenger & McCann, Reiner, Ruth, Sweet): G Major (Silberberg). Standard or AEae (McMichen) tunings. One part: AABB (Sweet): AA’BB’CC’ (Beisswenger & McCann): AABBCCDD’ (Ruth). The word ‘bile’ means ‘boil’. Ralph Rinzler traces the tune to an early English country dance “Smiling Polly,” in print in 1765. “Bile Them Cabbage Down” is commonly found in beginning fiddle instructors and in ditty‑books, and is “a negro reel tune which has become universally popular among white square dance musicians” (Alan Lomax). African-American origins are evident in collections of White, Scarborough and Brown—all from black informants. Tennessee banjoist and entertainer Uncle Dave Macon recorded one of the first versions of the song in 1924; that same year Georgia fiddler and entertainer Fiddlin’ John Carson, and Georgia guitarist and singer Riley Puckett both separately recorded the tune. Clayton McMichen put together a virtuoso version of this tune to use in competition at various major fiddle contests. Also played by Arthur Smith on his radio broadcasts (Frank Maloy). The tune was Clayton McMichen’s favorite contest tune, by his own account (Charles Wolfe). Richardson, in “American Mountain Songs”, pg. 88., thought the tune was derived from “Oh Susanna.” The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by folklorist/musicologist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Cauthen (1990) found evidence the tune was commonly known in northeast Alabama from its mention in two sources: reports of the De Kalb County Annual (Fiddlers’) Convention 1926‑31, and in the book Sourwood Tonic and Sassafras Tea (where it was listed as one of the tunes played by turn of the century EtowahCounty fiddler George Cole). Richard Nevins believes the tune was not known in the Mt. Airy, N.C., musical community until the advent of the phonograph. Beisswenger & McCann (2008) note that Ozark fiddlers typically employ the “Nashville shuffle” bowing pattern when playing this tune, and that it is often used as the vehicle for contest fiddlers to show off crowd-pleasing virtuostic techniques.

***

African-American collector Thomas Talley was the first to publish the text of the song in his book Negro Folk Rhymes (1922, reprinted in 1991 edited by Charles Wolfe). His lyric (No. 232, “Cooking Dinner”) goes:
***
Go: Bile dem cabbage down.

Turn dat hoecake ‘round,

Cook it done an’ brown.

***
Yes: Gwineter have sweet taters too.

Hain’t had none since las’ Fall,

Gwineter eat ‘em skins an’ all.

***

Modern lyrics go:

***

Bile them cabbage down,

Bake that hoecake brown;

The only song that I can sing

Is ‘Bile Them Cabbage Down.’

***

 

More fun Boil Them Cabbage Down Lyrics

Got my gal a bicycle

She learned to ride it well

’til she rode into a telephone pole

And busted it all to ….pieces

 

[CHORUS]

 

Took my gal to a blacksmith’s shop

to have her mouth made small.

She turned around a time or two

and swallowed it shop and all.

Article by Vi Wickam / Fiddle Tune a Day, Fiddling, Videos / Beisswenger, bile them cabbage down, fiddle, fiddle tune, McCann, Song, suzuki violin, Them, twinkle twinkle, weiser high school 11 Comments

online fiddle lessons

Featured Products

  • Old School Old Time - Digital Download $12.00
  • Master Scale System - Violin Book/eBook COMBO $35.90 $29.95
  • Fast Fiddle Fitness Violin eBook Fast Fiddle Fitness - Violin Book $19.95
  • Old School Old Time - CD/Digital COMBO $27.00 $20.00
  • Fast Fiddle Fitness Violin eBook Fast Fiddle Fitness eBook - Violin Edition $9.95

Comments

  1. joel denman says

    November 23, 2012 at 9:16 pm

    Hey Vi
    I was inquiring about the origins of Boil Them Cabbage Down and stumbled on your page. (I’ve often wondered why anyone would boil cabbages, but I guess cabbage soup and hoecakes are something to sing about…) I enjoyed looking at your site.
    Hope we can pick sometime soon.

    Joel Denman (Parker, CO)

    Reply
    • Vi says

      November 23, 2012 at 10:00 pm

      Thanks Joel. If you come up to the State Fiddle Contest in January at the Stock show, I’ll be there. I hope you can make it!

      Reply
  2. RJ Smith says

    September 22, 2013 at 8:31 am

    Hey Vi: WOW, that was one very COOL version of Boil Them Cabbage. The version I’ve been using & tching is SO boring. I must find this version you played, if it’s in print anywhere. I have a feeling that ‘you’ added a little ‘Vi Spice’ to it, haha. Great job & great tune. Thanks for sharing 🙂

    Reply
    • Vi Wickam says

      September 22, 2013 at 9:35 am

      Hi RJ, The version I play is based off of the version that Major Franklin played when he was alive. I don’t know of any transcriptions of it “yet”. I am starting the project of transcribing these tunes now, but I don’t know how long it will take to get to this tune. 🙂

      Reply
  3. Michael Friedman says

    April 1, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    Wonderful musical performance !

    Reply
  4. Michael Friedman says

    April 1, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    Wonderful musical performance !

    Reply
    • Vi Wickam says

      April 11, 2014 at 12:04 pm

      Thanks Michael. I used to hate this tune because my dad had me play it so much, but today I really enjoy it.

      Reply
  5. Vi Wickam says

    April 11, 2014 at 7:05 pm

    Thanks. I used to hate this tune because my dad had me play it so much, but today I really enjoy it.

    Reply
  6. Francis Meador says

    May 18, 2014 at 1:30 pm

    I always felt that same way about this song. You play a great version. Sounds great. I especially liked it where you went into a hokum bowing and also where you went up to 3rd position. Really different, yet certainly "Boil dem cabbage down".

    Reply
  7. Vi Wickam says

    May 19, 2014 at 7:46 pm

    Thanks, Francis. I learned this general concept of the tune from Dick Barrett, and then I heard a recording of Major Franklin playing it (where Dick learned it). And of course, I had to add some of my own personality into it. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Swinging at the Savoy

Get Swinging at the Savoy NOW.

Cart

Keep Up with Vi

    (Fiddle Tune a Day and Quick Tip Subscribers will also get periodic blog updates)
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Featured

Signup for [my] Talent Forge

Online Fiddle Lessons

Signup to Study with Vi Online at [my] Talent Forge

Categories

  • Colorado Music (28)
  • Fiddling (672)
    • Contests (12)
    • Fiddle Tune a Day (367)
    • Free Fiddle Lessons (15)
    • Musician's Round Table (8)
    • New Tune Challenge (21)
    • Workshops (52)
  • Music (144)
  • Musings (13)
  • Videos (605)
    • eGreetings (4)
    • Quick Tips (124)

Popular Posts

  • Fiddle Tune a Day
  • The Difference between a Violin and a Fiddle
  • How to Put on a Fiddle Contest Successfully
  • Play any Song You’ve Ever Heard
  • Binaural Beats Music Technology of the Future
  • Home
  • About Vi
  • Projects
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Calendar
  • Contact

Copyright © 2022 Vi "The Fiddler" Wickam | Genesis Website by Wickam Group, LLC