Going Down To Cairo: A Song History

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The Traditional Tune Archive lists “Going Down to Cairo” as an American reel, treats it as one form of “Liza Jane,” and notes that it often served for play-party games and dances.[1] The Archive cross-references it with “Black Them Boots” and “Goodbye Liza Jane,” and its note on the title describes Cairo as a town at the meeting of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, an important port with a rough reputation.[1] A note in the Traditional Ballad Index calls the Cairo song a southern Illinois fiddle tune and identifies the town as Cairo, Illinois.[2]

Old photograph of a large two-story wharf boat with smokestacks moored at a riverbank

Wharf boat at Cairo, Illinois, 1864, albumen half stereograph, photographed 1864. Shown for its setting, the river town of the title.

The Ballad Index files it under “Black Them Boots (Goin’ Down to Cairo),” tags it as a play-party song and gives its Roud number as 7656.[2] Another of the Index’s editors judges it to be probably akin to “Goodbye Liza Jane” but adds that the version printed by Randolph is too fragmentary to be sure.[2] The Index cites texts printed as “Black Them Boots” in Leah Jackson Wolford’s The Play-Party in Indiana (1916) and Vance Randolph’s Ozark Folksongs (1946–1950), and under the Cairo title, along with a melody and a long run of alternative verses, in David S. McIntosh’s Folk Songs and Singing Games of the Illinois Ozarks (1974).[2][3] In Batesville, Arkansas, on June 25, 1952, John Quincy Wolf Jr. recorded W. P. Detherow singing “Black Them Boots,” which Detherow introduced as “a ring play song” and, after singing it, explained the square-dance-style figures in which couples meet and swing.[4] Judy House includes “Going Down To Cairo” in Jam Across America, a 178-page jam book for mountain dulcimer clubs, with songs chosen from the playlists of clubs around the country and arranged in DAD tuning.[5]

Our book that contains the song "Going Down To Cairo"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Going Down to Cairo".
  2. Traditional Ballad Index: "Black Them Boots (Goin' Down to Cairo)".
  3. Traditional Ballad Index: "Bibliography".
  4. Lyon College, John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection: "Black Them Boots," sung by W. P. Detherow.
  5. Judy House: "Jam Across America".
  6. Image: Wharf boat at Cairo, Illinois, 1864, albumen half stereograph, photographed 1864. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

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