Talk:Camptown Races

message: There's an interesting explanation given for this song, in the Rising Sun Newsletter, which appeared in the bottom-outside-corner of the recto pages in The Next Whole Earth Catalog (1981) on p.133 & 135. I'm not sure how to work it in, or whether it's too large to quote in full(?), so I'll leave it here for now. --Quiddity 22:48, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I, for one, would like more information ^^like this^^ on what this song MEANS. It's very cryptic and I imagine more contextual information like this would be useful. I came here looking for this, and came away empty-handed. - AgentSeven 06:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Rising Sun Newsletter

message: I always thought that the "camptown" of the song was an actual (or imaginary) town not a generic term, and the camptown ladies were the unmarried gals of that town.
I guess that I was wrong. According to the entry, a camptown was a location of temporary housing for men, often working in railroad construction. If this is the case, what would women be doing there. Some might be employed for cooking, cleaning or sewing. However, such a group of young and early middle aged men, who would not have wives or other regular female accompanyment, would attract prostitutes. These must have been the women singing doodah, perhaps to attract customers.
173.18.14.168 (talk) 08:51, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: The ladies

message: I find that odd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.60.81.80 (talk) 04:09, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: No mention of "Blazing Saddles"?

message: I knew that "camptown ladies sing this song" and "camptown races five miles long" parts were right, but I could've sworn that the next part was this:
Horses travel 'round the bend! Doo-dah, doo-dah!
Guess this race just never ends, oh, doo-dah day!''
Maybe I was wrong...
RyuKetsueki123 (talk) 21:58, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This University of Toronto page is apparently what the article is using. If you can find a reliable source that lists a variant (which is possible), then add it in. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  I don't think that the first verse is right... 

message: Is this song the origin of the phrase in American English "I wouldn't touch ____ with a ten foot pole" George 69.119.207.171 (talk) 02:49, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly. In this link  a longer version has the verse
--Auric (talk) 12:59, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ten Foot Pole 

message: I am adding the OR tag until someone can either show why this only needs the one reference tag, or adds more sources. There seem to be a lot of facts in this article, and I don't see many being held up (at least in the article itself).
I have also tagged each fact that should have a reference, if the reference cannot be established, then it is not encyclopedic, and should be removed. IMDB should have a lot of these facts for reference.
☠  Travis "TeamColtra" McCrea ☠ - (T)(C) 06:48, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Many of the items you marked for original research seem to refer to their source material (i.e. an appearance of the song in a named movie at a stated place). This seems to fall under the guideline that we "know sources for that sentence exist". Additionally, they provide cultural context for this song, so unless they are challenged, I would vote to keep them. Benf1977 (talk) 20:45, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

text: How does this constitute "original research"? I'm not denying that there need to be more references listed, but the tag seems inappropriate. Mkubica (talk) 04:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original Research 

message: Growing up near Camptown PA, I find it unusual there is no mention of the actual race, on which the song was originally based (at least according to local legend). At the time the song was written there was an actual Camptown horse race, that went from Camptown to nearby Wyalusing, which is almost exactly 5 miles (measured from what most would call the town centers) following a creek bed that is usually either dry or little more than a mud hole the week after Labor day, when the race is held. The race is still held to this day, as a 10k foot race, but follows a different track. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cgw705 (talk • contribs) 15:22, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  The actual Camptown Race 

message: Mentioned in the article... Anyone know a source? --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 05:25, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Lincoln Parody

message: While many focus on the word 'Race' and 'Track' in this song, it is my firm belief that this song does not talk of an actual race or an actual track.
Informed by the knowledge that there were once many mills and lumbering operations along the Susquehanna River in the area around Camptown, Pennsylvania, and northward to Owego (and not inconsequentially, Campville, New York).  And with the knowledge that the Susquehanna River was once a path followed by many escaped slaves to the north on their way to perhaps Canada.  To me it makes sense that this song is about how the 'Camptown Ladies' (not necessarily ladies at all) would advertise that workers were needed at the 'Camptown Races' (meaning the Camptown area Mill races).  The advertising by the criers (or Camptown Ladies named in the song) told them that the Camptown Race track was five miles long (and indeed, it is about five miles from Camptown PA to Wyalusing PA along the Wyalusing Creek).  The narrator on arrival, is able to choose between the 'old bob tail nag' and the 'bay' (or perhaps he is left with the bob tail nag because someone ahead of him got the bay).  
The narrator tells us that the prime horses in 'the race' to the mill are the long tail filly and the big black hoss, but in the last verse he tells us that with his bob-tail nag, he was still able to 'win' money which he kept in his 'tow bag'.  To me these are some of the biggest clues aside from the five mile track and 'ten mile heat', that this is a job towing (perhaps lumber), and not really a race.  The rest of the song is just bluster about how great his horse is with this 'race', and attempts to trivialize the huge amount of work that these men do to earn their pocket full of tin.  Perhaps there were also side bets made about how much lumber the old bob-tail nag could haul versus other horses, the muley-cow (perhaps a mule or a cow or both).  I think side bets may have been a way for these workers to keep a mundane job interesting, and for an employer to keep lumber running to the mills in a quick and efficient fashion.  
Language:
In my interpretation, "Doo-Dah" is simply the work foreman telling the worker to do this or to do that.  So when the 'doo-dah' is used within the line "Oh! doo-dah day!", it means that the work is nothing but doing this or that all day long. So in other words, to the escaped slave it is not much different from being a slave.  But in the first verse the "Oh! doo-dah day!" is followed by the lines "I come down dah wid my hat caved in—Doo-dah! doo-dah!, I go back home wid a pocket full of tin—Oh! doo-dah day!"  So the narrator is advertising that even though you may work like a slave, if you truly need spending coin, then this hard work will pay.  This is reinforced by the lines in the chorus that tell us, "Gwine to run all night! Gwine to run all day!" meaning that these 'races' (and their associated mills) run all night and day, so a person could work around the clock.
Inescapable conclusions:
In my view of this song, it becomes obvious that Stephen Foster may have simply committed to paper a negro work song that had already existed in parts for a number of years prior to his compiling it and publishing it.  I'm sure this conjecture might upset some Stephen Foster fans, and it is probably why this interpretation has not made it to the Wiki itself.  But I think an honest understanding of the historical context and time frame can lead to few other conclusions.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.20.246.33 (talk) 20:39, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible Context: 

message: Given that Stephen Foster was a youth 14,15 years old when he was going to school in heavily rural German-populated Pennsylvania, and (a) given the literature about what kinds of mischief youths of that age in the mid-1870's could get into (e.g., Twain's "Tom Sawyer" and his "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"), and (b) given Foster's fondness for mimicking the dialects he had heard, I've come to believe that the "doo dah" expression Foster wrote into "The Camptown Races" was a German expression that he must have heard quite often when he, alone or with some summer-time friends, would sneak into a German famer's watermelon patch to swipe a big, fat, juicy watermelon to slice up and eat under the shade of a tree, a tree possibly by a nice cool river or a small Pennsylvania lake somewhere.
     On the German farmer discovering that he had some watermelon-marauding teenagers in his carefully tended watermelon patch, he would naturally have shouted an expression at the boys, a German expression that Foster heard (and remembered) as something he later recalled as sounding like "doo dah! doo dah!".  But I believe what that farmer would have naturally shouted -- again, in German -- was the warning phrase often shouted to young people like the marauding Foster and his friends, "'Du da!  Du da!"("Hey! You there!  You there!").
     The etymology of that German phrase is simple:  "du" ("you" in English) is used when familiarly speaking to friends or [shouting at] children, and "da", which means "there" in English.  And in German the two words in the phrase are pronounced literally as "Doo [du] dah [da]!  Doo [du] dah [da]!"
     So, in Foster's "Camptown Races" his "doo dah" isn't at all gibberish; it is fitting, euphonious German that has led to his song becoming one of America's all-time favorites.
K. Kellogg-Smith (talk) 02:58, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  German influence in "Camptown Races". 

message: I heard that Pete Seeger covered the song in the 60s.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Florence Hansen (talk • contribs) 16:26, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  A notable cover of the song 

message: I don't see "Camptown Races" among the 16 songs listed on the cover. Misty MH (talk) 02:44, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the music cover photo related? 

message: Is there no comment on the dialect of the lyrics which recall 19th century African-American vernacular which has particular social connotations that may be suspect in the contemporary culture of poltical correctness.   98.244.137.86 (talk) 19:29, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ebonics?