Bullen version

Oh the mountens so high and de ribbers so wide Ch: Poor Lucy Anna! De mountens so high an' de ribbers so wide Ch: Ise just gwine ober de mounten!

Source: Bullen, Songs of Sea Labour

Emmett version

Away down in de Kentuck brake Ch: Poor Lucy Anna! De darkey lib, dey call him jake, Ch: Ise just gwine ober de mounten! He pick upon de banjo string, Dis am de song dat he would sing. Come my lub an go wid me, I'm gwine away to Tennessee; A hoss an cart shall pull you roun', Walk up hill an foot it down.

The song I’m Gwine Ober de Mountain (I’m Going over the Mountain) is credited to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Emmett](Dan Emmett), a prominent blackface minstrel songwriter and performer. The Ehtiopian Glee Book, published in 1848, includes another “I’m Going Over the Mountain”. Like many popular songs, these tunes seems to have found their way into use during dock- and ship-work. The rhyming couplets have been separated to allow for the typical shanty call-and-response. Many more verses can be found for this song, and additional verses would be easily improvised, making the song suitable for sustained work at a capstan or windlass.

Bullen gives a melody in Songs of Sea Labour in “steady swinging tempo”, but he provides only one verse. We can easily fit the structure to Emmett’s published verses instead. Modern performance would warrant a careful rephrasing of the words.

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