They haven’t caught the sniper yet, doodah, doodah.
Wat er mij aan doet denken: waar zou The Camp Town Ladies vandaan komen? Even kijken op tinternet.
De Camptown ladies sing dis song — Doo-dah! doo-dah!
De Camptown racetrack five miles long — Oh! doo-dah day!
I come down dah wid my hat caved in — Doo-dah! doo-dah!
I go back home wid a pocket full of tin — Oh! doo-dah day!Gwine to run all night! Gwine to run all day!
I’ll bet my money on de bob-tail nag — Somebody bet on de bay!
Blijkbaar is het in 1850 geschreven, of minstens neergepend (in Foster’s Plantation Melodies as sung by the Christy & Campbell Minstrels and New Orleans Serenaders), door Stephen C. Foster (1826-1864), die ook al Oh! Susanna geschreven had.
Hij zou zich gebaseerd hebben op hetzij een plantation song, hetzij op “Banks of Sacramento“:
Apparently, the melody was collected as a sea shanty called “Banks of Sacramento,” whose origins were in the California Gold Rush of 1849. This seems to predate the Stephen Foster copyright, but the relation, if any, between the two is unclear.
Spaeth in a A History of Popular Music in America, p. 107 notes that a “folk-song” called “Hoodah Day” is very similar to this song, and speculates that it or “Banks of Sacramento” could have been the original of the Foster song. Same tune in “Lincoln Hoss and Stephen A.” [Bluegrass Messengers]