Down in the Valley Washing Her Clothes

DESCRIPTION: "Down in the valley/river/woods/on Old Smoky where nobody goes, There was a maiden/girl/Annie Oakley without any clothes." A cowboy/Freddy/Gene/Roy Rogers comes by and opens his zipper/takes off his trousers or everything. Sometimes, she has a baby.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1950s (Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame)
KEYWORDS: sex clothes bawdy
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Bord)) US(SW) Ireland
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame, pp. 427-428, ("Down in the Valley Where Nobody Goes") (1 text)
Peirce-KeepTheKettleBoiling, p. 53, "(Down in the valley)" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Nancy Leventhal and Ed Cray, "Depth Collecting from a Sixth-Grade Class" in Western Folklore, Vol. XXII, No. 4 (Oct 1963 (available online by JSTOR)), #56a p. 243 ("On top of Old Smoky") (1 text)
Bruce Jackson, Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me (Florence, 2004 (copyrighted material limited preview "Digitized by Google")) #89 p. 227, "Forty-Nine Ford" (1 text)
Onwuchekwa Jemie, editor, Yo' Mama: New Raps, Toasts, Dozens, Jokes, and Children's Rhymes from Urban Black America (Philadelphia, 2003 (copyrighted material limited preview "Digitized by Google")) p. 143, "Down By The River" (1 text)
Roud #18993
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Down in the Jungle" (a playparty version)
cf. "The First Time I Met Her (Down in the Valley, Down in the Dark Alley)" (form)
File: OpGap427

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