1914: “Dan Tucker Up to Date” song
This is not the first time we’ve run into the “Old Dan Tucker” folksong on my website…
Old Dan Tucker (image credit: Wikipedia)
…But it’s the first time we’ve found a Pacific NW version, with lyrics involving Chinook Jargon!
These words give you a neat little snapshot of post-frontier Oregon CJ, untranslated because those old enough to grasp them needed no help.
These lyrics also put on display some oldtimers’ attitudes toward the many social changes since “pioneer” days, contrasting “Old Dan Tucker” with his son, “Young Dan Tucker” and that fella’s wife.
It’s a bit of a surprise to me that Old Dan here embodies conservative virtues, whereas he was kind of a fool in earlier folk versions of the song, like the following —
Old Dan Tucker was a fine old soul,
Buckskin belly and a rubber ass-hole,
Swallowed a barrel of cider down
And then he shit all over town.
Among the suspicious innovations embraced by Young Dan is the then-new practice of taking “hikes”, which some folks thought must be a Chinuk Wawa word. Worse yet (!), Mrs. Young Dan participates in protest marches (“campaign hikes”).
In this pre-World War 1 song, Young Dan is also criticized for using electricity, and for engaging in modern mechanized warfare, which soon would be exactly the way US forces took on their enemies. Oh, and his wife stands up for women’s rights 😒🤣
Dan Tucker Up to Date
W. R. Winans
Old Dan Tucker was a fine old jay
He used to ride in a one horse shay.
He’d go to town to see the shows
And get some dope to paint his nose.Clatawa Old Dan Tuck [Go, Old Dan Tuck!]
Halo ketchum muckamuck. [Didn’t get any supper (as in the original song).]Now young Dan Tucker is big and bad
And nothing like his fine old dad;
For he goes to town on a one wheel
bike
And takes the girls on a glory hike.Skookum tumtum Boston man [A stout-hearted White man,]
Hyas cultus young man Dan. [A totally worthless young man is Dan.]In a monoplane he takes a fly
And lunches on a wireless pie.
He bought his wife an electric hen
That lays fried eggs for a dozen men.And a fireless cooker that never lies
As it turns out beefsteak, cakes and
pies:
And a graphophone with the voice of a
bird
Singing sweetest songs that were ever
heard.Skookum tum tum Boston man,
Hyas cultus young man Dan.Old Dan Tucker was a fierce old cuss
When he went to war with a blunder-
buss:
But young Dan Tucker makes them run
With a rapid fire from a silent gun.Clatawa! Old Dan Tuck,
Halo ketchum muckamuck.And he shoots up a port from a floating
fort
From any distance long or short:
And he’ll dance the dances, every one,
From Grizzly Bear to Texas Tom.Skookum tumtum Boston man
Hyas cultus young man Dan.And his wife goes on a campaign hike
With her dander up on a hunger strike:
And “Votes For Women” is her battle
cry,
And she swears she’d sooner live than
die.Hyas cultus Mrs. Tucker, [Totally worthless Mrs. Tucker,]
Halo cumtux momuck supper. [Doesn’t know how to fix supper.]Oh, the apple’s red and Mt. Hood’s
white,
And Hood River valley’s out of sight;
For there’s something started every
day.
And young Dan Tucker’s come to stay.Hyak, hyak, young Dan Tucker, [Hurry, hurry, young Dan Tucker,]
May-be-so ketchum sitkum supper. [Might get some midday* supper.]
— from the Hood River (OR) Glacier of October 29, 1914, page 3, column 3
Bonus fact:
Poor guy, with a name like “Dan Tucker”! Like the girl from Nantucket, you know folks couldn’t resist coming up with lots of new versions of this tale that involved obscenities. I refer you to the 1992 book, “Unprintable Ozark Folksongs“.
Still more evidence of the coexistence of Chinook ‘n’ cussin’?
