East Coast Line

DESCRIPTION: "Way down yonder On the East Coast Line", folks eat "syrup by the gallon ... meat by the pound ... bread by the ?" Pretty girl is described. "Then shake east, west, to one you love best."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1959 (LomaxCD1713)
KEYWORDS: floatingverses playparty nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
Roud #7876
RECORDINGS:
Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, "East Coast Line" (on LomaxCD1713)
NOTES [219 words]: Alan Lomax and Anna L. Chairetakis, liner notes for LomaxCD1713 have this as a "ring game," but we don't know more than that.
The introduction, "... yonder" is a floater, and not just for games, where the destination is more about rhyming than location. For example, "Over yonder steep hills, Where my father dwells" (William Wells Newell, Games and Songs of American Children (New York: 1903 ("Digitized by Internet Archive"), 87 "Intery Mintery," p. 142 [indexed as "Intery Mintery Cutery Corn"); "Down in yonder meadow where the green grass grows Where xxx she bleaches her clothes" ( Alice Bertha Gomme, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland and Ireland (London: David Nutt, 1898 ("Digitized by Microsoft")), vol. 2:, pp. 416-417); "Way down yonder in de holler o' de fiel' Angels workin' on de chariot wheel" (Lomax ABFS p. 16, "Tie-Shuffling Chant") see Let Me Fly; "Way down yonder in Pasquotank, Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bank" (Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 189 "May Irwin's Frog Song").
The game floater, "Look to the east, look to the west, choose the one you love the best"; "Way down yonder on Cedar Street where all dem niggers grow eleben feet" (Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 #469, indexed here as "Roll, Jordan, Roll (II)"). - BS
Last updated in version 6.7
File: RcEaCoLi

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