John Crow Say

DESCRIPTION: Call-response. The call is a single line beginning "John Crow say"; the response is "can't work, can't work on Sunday," both repeated. The chorus is "Think I'll tell a lie, kill your scrawny cow"(2x), then the call line and response.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1981 (JamaicaFaithWorkPlay)
KEYWORDS: lie humorous nonballad worksong bird
FOUND IN: West Indies(Jamaica)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Noel Dexter and Godfrey Taylor, Mango Time - Folk Songs of Jamaica (Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2007), p. 54, "John Crow Say" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Valerie Walker, "John Crow Say I'm Wan' Decent Woman" (on JamaicaFaithWorkPlay)
NOTES [127 words]: John Crow -- the turkey vulture -- is a character in Jamaican Annancy stories (see, for example, Walter Jekyll, Jamaican Song and Story (New York: Dover Publications, 1966 (reprint of 1907 edition)), #43 pp. 132-135, #46 pp. 140-142), "vainer and less ingenious than Anansi the spider" (Roberts liner notes to JamaicaFaithWorkPlay). [Anansi is the eponymous spider trickster of West Indian and Ashanti (West African) 'Anansi stories.']
Dexter and Taylor have this as a work song.
Call lines include "John Crow say": "I want a decent woman," "I'm a decent 'somebody'," "I'm a dry land tourist" and "I'm studying to be a teacher." These lines and the current description have been "translated" with some help from the Jamaican glossary in Dexter and Taylor. - BS
Last updated in version 6.7
File: RcJoCrSa

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