Put Your Little Foot (Varsouvienna)

DESCRIPTION: "Put your little foot (x2) Put your little foot right there... Take a step to the right, Take a step to the left, But forever stay near." Further invitations to move closer follow: "Put... your arm around my waist... We will dance through the night."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1943
KEYWORDS: dancing nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Ohrlin-HellBoundTrain 45, "Put Your Little Foot" (1 text, 1 tune)
Abernethy-SinginTexas, p. 82, "Put Your Little Foot" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Anderson-FolkSongsOfAustralia, pp. 47, 79-80, 182, 218, 230, 241, "Varsovienna" (6 tunes)
Meredith/Covell/Brown-FolkSongsOfAustraliaVol2, pp. 19, 31, 38, 66, 99-100, 137, "Varsoviana" (and variant spellings) (6 tunes)

RECORDINGS:
Glenn Ohrlin, "Varsouviana" (on Ohrlin01)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Put Your Little Foot Right Out
Varsouvienne
NOTES [99 words]: The "Varsouvianna" (Varsouvienna, etc.; described as a variation on the mazurka) tune is very common, and is cited sporadically in the references here. How often it bears this particular set of lyrics is less certain; few if any of the Australian versions, for instance, have words. - RBW
Ohrlin remarks that "Put Your Little Foot" was usually the cue for a fight to start. - PJS
Thomas/Leeder-SinginGatherin, p. 48, has a fiddle tune titles "Foot Prints or Put Your Little Foot Right Here," which looks as if it is this tune, but without lyrics any such classification is of course tentative. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: Ohr045

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.