Every year around Thanksgiving, Turkey in the Straw gets a bit of a resurgence in jams. Since I get weird looks when I leave the jam during this song, I figured I’d take a minute to explain my position on this tune. If you enjoy playing this tune and don’t want me to ruin it, you may want to stop reading.

I used to love playing Turkey in the Straw at jams. It was a safe song that I knew instinctively because I heard it all through my childhood. When I was a kid, it was a happy song that usually meant I was about to get some ice cream!! When I started playing bluegrass, I can remember getting excited when someone called this tune because it was a rare fiddle tune that I knew and could play (sort of)!

As I progressed in the bluegrass world, I naturally learned more fiddle tunes and would call them more frequently at jams. Turkey in the Straw was on my short list of tunes at the beginning of my journey – it was easy and most people knew it. I called it frequently.

Eventually, I started finding that some of my favorite fiddle tunes had lyrics. Songs like Whiskey Before Breakfast, Old Joe Clark, and the Girl I Left Behind all have lyrics which vary slightly depending on who’s playing them. Some were funny (Old Joe Clark lyrics make me laugh at least), others are just like any other song (Big Sciota comes to mind). It’s super rare that I hear anyone sing the lyrics for these fiddle tunes – but from a historical perspective, it provides some additional context into either the author or the times the tunes were played. Big Sciota for example is about a river in Ohio and the lyrics make that more obvious. Whiskey Before Breakfast is a tough-in-cheek song about getting drunk and having fun. etc.

Turkey in the Straw was originally called “Zip Coon”

Then I found out that Turkey in the Straw, released in 1861, was the original instrumental version of the minstrel show song Zip Coon by George Washington Dixon. For those unaware, coon is another derogatory name for a black person. The chorus includes the below which is how the Turkey in the Straw title came about. Note, there’s a few variations of the chorus depending on the charts you read – but they are effectively the same.

Turkey in the hay, in the hay, in the hay.
Turkey in the straw, in the straw, in the straw,
Pick up your fiddle and rosin your bow,
And put on a tune called Turkey in the Straw.

The title character in Zip Coon was the dandy (or fancy / well off) opposite of the more well-known and infamous Jim Crow character who was a poor uneducated African American. Both Zip Coon and Jim Crow were of course blackface caricatures designed to mock African Americans.

Not a great start for this “Thanksgiving Classic” – but it gets a little worse.

Have you ever wondered why Turkey in straw is also the ice cream truck song many of us grew up with? Well it’s due to the 1916 lyrical adaptation of this song which was called “N**** Like a Watermelon Ha Ha Ha“. Before the lyrics start, the narrator says some pretty racists stuff including tell the kids to come get some “colored man’s ice cream – watermelon”. This tune was then adopted by many ice cream truck companies for years. While many ice cream truck companies have stopped using this song because of the obvious racial overtones – some still do. If you hear an ice cream truck playing this song, maybe you should tell them about it.

Common (and one uncommon) retorts when I refuse to play this song.

  1. “It’s a just traditional tune that everyone knows the melody to. Most people don’t know the lyrics at all”. First, that may be true, but I know them and I cannot unhear them. Second, Turkey in the Straw is not a fiddle tune that had racist lyrics added – it was a racist song that had the lyrics stripped away. So the song was born in negativity. It’s hard to justify playing it for that reason. In my opinion, that’s enough reason for me to not play it.
  2. “A lot traditional songs from that time have similar racist backstories”. Since music like all art usually is based on current or events, it’s certainly true that many songs written during slavery, during Jim Crow era, or immediately after have similar racist overtones. In some cases, the racist elements were added to otherwise non-racist songs / tunes. In nearly all cases that I can think of modern players have removed those racists elements from songs (I don’t hear the “Little man pick the cotton” line too often in Take Me Back to Tulsa for example). In this case however, the tunes origins are so overtly racist in my opinion that you can’t even change it around enough for me to not hear it as such.
  3. “You can’t erase history and refusing to play these songs is erasing that history”. I get the point, but no. I also strongly believe that the recordings of these songs, sheet music, and etc should be preserved for the historical purpose. However, I don’t believe that refusing to play any particular song at a particular jam is going to erase anything. There’s plenty of songs I choose not to play and they still exist just fine for good or bad.
  4. “You can’t tell me what to play.” I’m not telling anyone what they can / cannot play in general. I’m not the bluegrass police nor do I intend to be. I’m just stating my personal rationale for not playing this song and why I think others should probably not play it as well. I’m free to make the choice not to play this just as much as you are to play it. However, I do enforce this ban at any jam that I host. As the host, that’s my decision to make. If my choice means you don’t come to my jam, that is your decision to make and I’m okay with that trade off.
  5. “Its a slippery slope. What about this song or that song etc”. There’s a reason it’s called the ‘Slippery Slope Fallacy‘. First, usually people say this in context with songs I’ve never heard or played – so it’s not really valid. Second so long as there are people, there will be songs that espouse their beliefs – both good and bad. Any song that is hateful is bad in my opinion. However, what “hateful” is often varies depending on experiences. As an example, I don’t mind playing murder ballads, songs about drinking too much, songs about drug use, and etc – though I know many people that do and consider those songs hateful or otherwise.  I usually don’t call certain songs in front of certain people because I feel that’s the nice thing to do – but that doesn’t mean I agree with them, nor does it mean that they are right / wrong. 
  6. “Turkey in the Straw was originally an instrumental called Rose Tree from 1700’s, so it’s not racist“. This is maybe the only potential accurate argument, but in my opinion it’s a bit weak still (and not something I hear often). While the tunes are similar, and perhaps Zip Coon / Turkey in the Straw is derived from The Rose Tree, the melodies are different enough to conclude they are different tunes.

Stop playing Turkey in the Straw

If you don’t think racism exists in bluegrass today, you’re sorely mistaken. It surely does and really needs to stop. If you think that it’s silly to say a fiddle tune is racist, I disagree. Here’s a great NPR article that focuses on these tunes. In 2022 I was at a bluegrass festival in Washington state with one of my black friends. Being immersed in bluegrass for a while and being white, I didn’t pick up on a lot of what my friend did – like the time when someone handed him a black-faced marionette tap dancing doll telling “I’m sure you can play this fine”. I said nothing, mainly because I didn’t pay attention to it. He later told me how he felt being one of, if not the only, black person at this festival – angry, powerless, and alone. He left that festival and I haven’t seen him at one since.

Of course knowing the backstory of every traditional / old time song is nearly impossible. I don’t fault anyone that plays this song without understanding the origins. Once you know the origins though, it’s hard to keep playing them – and hard not to judge someone that does honestly. Especially since there’s so many other songs to choose from that don’t have this baggage.

You can draw your own conclusions and decide to play or not play this song on your own. However, you’ll know why I veto this song at my jams and I step out when this tune is called at other jams. Feel free to join me for a beer.