Cotton eyed what does it mean

Term » Definition. Word in Definition. Wikipedia 1. How to pronounce cotton-eyed joe? Alex US English. David US English. Mark US English. Daniel British. Libby British. Mia British. Karen Australian. Hayley Australian. Now guys hold on, this is gonna make you a little squeamish. This comes from the world-famous Urban Dictionary. The act of a man having his urethra swabbed by a q-tip to test for S. Where did you come from where did you go? But also one uncomfortable truth, which becomes increasingly plain the more we actively listen: "Cotton Eye Joe" is a song about slavery.

Here's what we found. Rednex, a Swedish house music group peculiarly obsessed with American folk and bluegrass, dusted off the tune and massaged it into the global dance hit it is today.

Its lyrics might have changed somewhat over the decades as the tune passed from fiddle to fiddle, but they all stem from the same roots. According to Dorothy Scarborough, Texas-born folklorist , the ballad is "an authentic slavery-time song," predating the Civil War.

The air and some of the words were given by my sister, Mrs. George Scarborough, as learned from the Negroes on a plantation in Texas, and other parts by an old man in Louisiana, who sang it to the same tune. He said he had known it from his earliest childhood and had heard the slaves sing it on plantations. The version Scarborough documents includes outrageous descriptions of Joe as a man who ran away with a pretty black woman whom the narrator loved.

Joe's "teeth was out," "nose was flat" and "eyes was crossed," the narrator sings, painting a cringeworthy caricature by today's standards.

If taken as "served" and there are other examples of "sarve" used in place of "serve" , Joe is probably the narrator's slave. Alternatively, if the line was meant as a twist on "serve me right" -- with the narrator suggesting, perhaps, he might have prevented Joe and the woman from leaving together -- Joe and the narrator may have simply known each other, most likely as fellow slaves.

The song, then, either tells the story of a man whose runaway slave stole the woman he'd presumably planned to marry, or the story of another slave whose friend betrayed him. The bizarre, fiddle-fueled novelty was actually a reworking of an old American folk song, and thanks to its undeniable catchiness, it do-si-doed all the way to No.

With respect to the song itself often titled "Cotton-Eyed Joe" , "Where did you come from? As Scarborough writes, she learned parts of the tune from "an old man in Louisiana," who picked it up from slaves on a plantation.