In this column: funny caper, capers, funny caper blues, slick caper blues, Memphis Willie B., Robben Ford, hookworm blues, hookworm, Blind Blake, rounder, Memphis Rounder Blues, Frank Stokes, Emmett Murray
Funny Caper Blues
All your funny caper, little girl, is gonna get you a trick someday
All your funny caper, little girl, is gonna get you a trick someday
Your funny caper sure to get you a trick someday
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Ev'y time I come to your house, minute I enter the door
You got a wet towel on your bed and a pan of water settin' on the floor
Ahh, your funny caper sure gonna get a trick someday
Your funny caper sure to get you a trick someday
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Funny caper = A goofy joke or prank, an illegal activity, or a ridiculous adventure.
Caper comes from the Latin capra, or goat – an animal that, at least according to the English usage of its name, started with playful leaping, progressed to pranking, and finally descended into bucking. A capriole is a backward kick done in midair by a trained horse. Also compare the old silent films Comedy Capers.
Memphis Willie B. – Funny caper blues
Compare Robben Fords Slick capers blues
Hookworm Blues
Hookworm in your body and your food don't do you no good
Hookworm in your body and your food don't do you no good
Same way when a rounder come in a nice neighborhood
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Dirty old hookworm got into my room, causes me to walk, through and moan
Man like a hookworm, got a-hold to my baby
He got up on his pads, people, and I don't mean maybe
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Rounder = a Methodist minister who travels a circuit among congregations
Hookworm
A hookworm is a parasite that lives in the intestines of the human body. There it can lay 10,000 eggs per day, which come out in the feces and can infect others.
It begins with “ground itch,” a prickly tingling between the toes, which is soon followed by a dry cough. Weeks later, victims succumbed to an insatiable exhaustion and an impenetrable haziness of the mind that some called stupidity. Adults neglected their fields and children grew pale and listless. Victims developed grossly distended bellies and “angel wings”—emaciated shoulder blades accentuated by hunching.
Until the early 20 th century, however, most people in the U.S. did not know what a hookworm was, much less that millions of those parasites inhabited the guts of people throughout the South (40% of populations stretching from southeastern Texas to West Virginia). Hookworm symptoms were written off as simply being indicative of Southerners’ backward character, laziness and moronic Southerners.
Hookworm infections stigmatized the South; "You had an entire class of Southern society—including whites, blacks, and Native Americans—that was looked upon as shiftless, lazy good-for-nothings who can’t do a day’s work.”
Blind Blake – Hookworm Blues
Memphis Rounders Blues
Now what makes Memphis women love a rounder so
Now what makes Memphis women, baby, love a rounder so
'Cause he takes his time, doin' the work everywhere he goes
I don't drink whiskey but I'm crazy about my wine
I don't drink whiskey but I'm crazy about my wine
If you take my good gal, I give you trouble all the time
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Rounder = the word rounder as applied to people has a number of meanings in the broad range of 'a person who goes around', in various senses. The earliest meaning in English is from the late sixteenth century, in reference to a person in the military who patrols or inspects sentries or guards.
In this sense it is an Americanism, first found in the 1850s, and refers to a person who frequents disreputable bars or the like, or who is frequently in prison.
It is not primarily an African-American or southern term, though it does appear in a number of blues lyrics; I know of examples in Blind Blake, Peg Leg Howell, Kokomo Arnold, Frank Stokes, Leroy Carr, and many others.
The word Rounder also applies to gamblers, who travel from city to city in search of a poker table and make their money that way.
Frank Stokes – Memphis Rounder Blues
Ol' Time Rounders
Captain got a way he got to stop
A-wakin' me up at four o'clock
All of you old, long-time a-rounders, you better lie down
You lay down late, and you get up soon
Can't see nothin' but the stars and the moon
All of you old, long time rounders, you better lie down
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May be crazy, but I ain't no fool
I'm goin' down in Florida where I won't have a plow nor mule
All of you old, long-time rounders better lie down
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A rounder in this sense is a worker who moves from farm to farm to perform seasonal work.
Captain = foreman, supervisor, the boss