Lyrics: Jab Jones, Will Shade
Music: Jab Jones, Will Shade
A Memphis Jug Band song played in the early days of the Dead.
I know they're gonna run to meNotes
When they get across the sea
Every chance to win when Washington lands in France
All safe for now sugar baby
Oh mama don't you weep and moan
Uncle Sam got your man and gone
Now they're doing the Lindy Bird across the sea
Oh mama how can it be
You went way across the sea
Just to keep from doing that Lindy Bird with me
Oh baby well I done told you now
You should have seen me with my uniform on
I could Lindy just as sure as you're born
And then I'd do that Lindy Bird with you
I asked her for a piece of banana
She said let me play the blues on your piano
And then I'll do that Lindy Bird with you
She said she had a dream about a submarine (note 1)
I asked her for a glass of kaola
She said let me play the blues on your victrola
And then I'll do the Lindy Bird with you
| Grateful Dead and Related Recordings | |||||
| Date | Album | ||||
| Jul 1964 | Mother Mcree's Uptown Jug Champions | ||||
| 1966 | Historic Dead | ||||
| studio 1967 | The Grateful Dead (note 1) | ||||
"The very first known form of swing was the Texas Tommy in 1913, which later changed to the Mooch and Sugar in 1916 and even later called the Break-A-Way by 1919. During the 1920's when the Charleston was becoming all the rage, the Breakaway and Charleston would start to mix with and was forming a new unnamed dance style.
"In 1927 this style was finally acknowledged and given a name by a fabulous swing dancer named George "Shorty" Snowden. Shorty George from New York's Harlem was to re-name the 'break-a-way', he called it the "Lindy Hop or Lindbergh hop"; after the famous pilot Charles Augustus Lindbergh when he made his thirty-three hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean to France successfully on May 20, 1927. There are two main stories about the name that go something like this (the 1st one being the main one):"1) In September, 1927, a newspaper reporter having never seen this style of dance before walked up to the winners at a dance contest in Central Park in New York, (known as the un-official first trial of the Harvest Moon Ball Contest, tried again in 1934). This reporter asked the winning couple (Shorty George!) what it was that they were doing, as he had not seen it before. Shorty thought for a second and replied "the Lindy Hop...We flying just like Lindy did!". The newspaper reporter did an article on the contest in his newspaper and described what he saw calling it the "Lindy Hop."
"2) At the Savoy Ballroom (some say Manhattan Casino) on Lennox Avenue in Harlem, New York, Shorty George was Dancing in a marathon and a man (reporter) came over and asked what kind of dance he was doing, Snowden replied "The Lindy Hop... Were flyin' just like Lindy did!"... The name stuck, plus a few other stories ... were ever it occured, Shorty did name it."