The Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn)
"Blue Tail Fly" is usually associated with blackface minstrel songwriter and performer, Daniel Decatur "Dan" Emmett, but it was credited when published in 1846 to F.D. Benteen.
It gained renewed popularity during early days of the American folk music revival when it was also recorded by the Andrews Sisters with Burl Ives, Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, and others.
When I was young I used to wait
On the boss and give him his plate
And pass the bottle when he got dry
And brush away the blue-tail fly
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
My master's gone away
And when he'd ride in the afternoon
I'd follow after with a hickory broom
The pony bein' rather shy
When bitten by a blue-tail fly
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
My master's gone away
One day he ride around the farm
The flies so numerous they did swarm
One chanced to bite him on the thigh
The devil take the blue-tail fly
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
My master's gone away
The pony run, he jump, he pitch
He threw my master in the ditch
He died and the jury wondered why
The verdict was the blue-tail fly
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
My master's gone away
They laid him under a simmon tree
His epitaph is there to see
"Beneath this stone I'm forced to lie
Victim of a blue-tail fly"
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care
My master's gone away