"High Daddy" (1863)
The Famous Song
Written & Composed Expressively for
Bryant's Minstrels of New York
by Daniel Decatur Emmett, 1815-1904

New York: Wm. A Pond & Co., 547 Broadway
Plate No. 3472[?]
[Source: 024/038@Levy]


[NOTE: all verses use the call/response
format of verse 1]
1.
The sun's gone down to take a little sleep,
  I met High Daddy in the morning;
The moon's come out to take another peep,
  I met High Daddy and I wont go home any more, any more;
Then wake up boys! for master's come to bed.
  I met High Daddy in the morning;
We'll have a spree if we hav'n't got a red.
  I met High Daddy and I wont go home any more, any more!

CHORUS [sung after each verse]
Then darky, never die, 
Black face and chian eye;
Go down to the barnyard, boys, the owl's on the roost;
High Daddy wont come nigh. 
He's chok'd on chicken pie;
'Tis all "O K," I say and right upon the goose.

2.
I know'd a darkie and his name was Joe,
I know it was, for he once told me so;
He used to hoe and dig up all the land,
But now he says that _work is contraband_.

3.
He drank skimm'd milk from morn 'till night. 
Somebody said that it would make him white;
But let him drink untill he gets his fill.
He's always bound to be a darkie still! 

4.
His color will stick, but that's not a sin.
To wash it off, you're compell'd to rub it in;
For darkie wil be darkie as I've said before,
To the end of the world and for _two days more_! 

5.
The black man is a very curious thing,
His jaybird heel can shuffle, cut, and wing,
But fill him up with gin, and lay him in the shade,
He'll work very well _especially if he's made_!