She Promised She'd Meet Me
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-07-24

Day 130 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series

Sandburg writes: "It is believed this song originated in Chicago, the premier meat packing city of the round earth, the continents thereof, and the archipelagoes of the seven seas. However, it is also sung in Omaha, Cincinnati!, New York and San Francisco, as of local origin.

In time seven cities may claim its  author, though it is Aristophanic rather than Homeric in style. The second verse is more vulgar  than the first. Both are sung with gusto at all our best universities. Footballs are made of pigskin. In Cincinnati, once nicknamed Porkopolis, we heard that the song "is best rendered when rendering lard or skinning a beef.""

This is related to Hungry Hash House. And variations have been recorded by Charlie Craver], Binkley Brothers' Dixie Clodhoppers, Cofer Brothers, Bill Cox, Uncle Dave Macon, New Lost City Ramblers, Charlie Poole & the North Carolina Ramblers, Ernest V. Stoneman, Gordon Tanner, Smokey Joe Miller & Uncle John Patterson.