Camptown Races

"Camptown Races", sometimes mistakenly referred to as Camptown Ladies, is a comic song in broad, stereotyped negro "dialect" by Stephen Foster, published in 1850 in Foster's Plantation Melodies as sung by the Christy & Campbell Minstrels and New Orleans Serenaders, Written Composed and Arranged by Stephen C. Foster (Baltimore: F. D. Benteen; New Orleans: W. T. Mayo, 1850). The Camptown of Foster's own experience was in Pennsylvania, but a "camptown", or tent city was a temporary workingmen's accommodation familiar in many parts of the United States, especially along the rapidly expanding railroad network. The rag-tag mix of horses that are racing, and the disorder of the racing conditions at the ramshackle camptown track provide the fun, with the usual unspoken undercurrent of superiority among the entertained hearers.

In pop culture

• In Blazing Saddles, white railroad bosses attempt to cajole black laborers to sing the song (called "Camptown Ladies" in the movie), but the workers feign ignorance of it.
• It is Foghorn Leghorn's favorite song.
• On a 2000 Episode of Oz, Unit Manager Tim McManus sings the song at the funeral of an African American staff member prompting the African American Warden Leo Glynn to fire him immediately.
• The Squirrel Nut Zippers song "The Ghost of Stephen Foster" appropriately mentions Camptown Races and uses some of its lyrical structure.
• The song has been referenced at least three times in The Simpsons. In the episode "Gump Roast" Ned Flanders and Reverend Lovejoy sing "Camptown Races", however, Lovejoy butchers the lyrics. The first time, Lovejoy sings the second verse as "Homer's breath is really strong!" Ned tells him to start over, but the second time, Lovejoy begins the chorus with "Homer's breath smells bad!"
• In another episode, "Lisa the Iconoclast" when the Jebediah Springfield parade digs up the grave to see the silver tongue, Chief Wiggum takes the skull and makes it sing Camptown Races.
• Finally, in "Realty Bites", Marge is trying to become a real estate agent but she can't remember anything. Lisa tells her so come up with a song to remember it, because she made up a song about the Magna Carta to the tune of Camptown Races, that goes, "In 1215 at Ronnie Mee, doo dah, doo dah, the nobles and the king agreed, oh da doo da day!" In the next scene, Marge, Bart, and Lisa are seen singing a song about real estate to the tune of Camptown Races to Homer, that goes, "Oh, on the closing day, the esker agents pay, taxes, lins and interest too, thanks to Penny May!

Lyrics

De Camptown ladies sing dis song, Doo-dah! doo-dah!

De Camptown race-track five miles long, Oh, doo-dah day!

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!

Gwine to run all night!

Gwine to run all day!

I'll bet my money on de bob-tail nag,

Somebody bet on de bay.

De long tail filly and de big black hoss, Doo-dah! doo-dah!

Dey fly de track and dey both cut across, Oh, doo-dah-day!

De blind hoss sticken in a big mud hole, Doo-dah! doo-dah!

Can't touch bottom wid a ten foot pole, Oh, doo-dah-day!

Chorus

Old muley cow come on to de track, Doo-dah! doo-dah!

De bob-tail fling her ober his back, Oh, doo-dah-day!

Den fly along like a rail-road car, Doo-dah! doo-dah!

Runnin' a race wid a shootin' star, Oh, doo-dah-day!

Chorus

See dem flyin' on a ten mile heat, Doo-dah doo-dah!

Round de race track, den repeat, Oh, doo-dah-day!

I win my money on de bob-tail nag, Doo-dah! doo-dah!

I keep my money in an old tow-bag, Oh, doo-dah-day!

Chorus

Reference

• University of Toronto: lyrics and information about the song