Turkey In The Straw

Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“Turkey in the Straw” is an American folk song that first gained popularity in the early 19th century. The first part of the song is a contrafactum of the ballad “My Grandmother Lived on Yonder Little Green”, published in 1857 by Horace Waters, 333 Broadway, New York City, which itself is a contrafactum of the Irish ballad “The Old Rose Tree” which was published by at least 1795 in Great Britain. It was a popular tune for fiddle players as early as 1820. In the late 1870s until the 1930s, racist variations of it were performed in minstrel shows by blackface actors and musicians.

Last updated on February 10, 2022