- Style
- Old-time
- Tradition
- American fiddle
- Form
- Two-step
- Key
- G
- Level
- 2
- Played on
- Voice and Fiddle
In the public domain. Source
Music
100bpm
Click any note to start from there
Chord chart
History
Kerry Mills wrote the music and Thurland Chattaway the words, and it was published in 1907 as "An Indian Fable," part of a craze for Native American themes in popular songs of that decade. Mills also wrote "Georgia Camp Meeting" and "Whistlin' Rufus," which fiddlers took up too.
Dance fiddlers from Wisconsin to Quebec to East Anglia in England played it, often as a two-step or polka. Woody Guthrie used the melody for his union song "Union Maid." In England it picked up comic words about Charlie Chaplin during World War I.
Oh the moon shines bright on Charlie Chaplin His shoes are cracking, from want of blacking, And his little baggy trousers they want mending, Before they send him, to the Dardanelles.