De Color'd Fancy Ball
(Alternately: Our Colored Fancy Ball)

For information on this song as part of the blackface minstrel tradition, please see
its page in The Juba Project's Minstrelsy Database.

For an alternate interpretation of this song, see Minstrels in the Parlour -- another item in this project's 'Artists Respond to Juba' section.

Credits

Andrew Dale, lead vocals; Tom Power, banjo; Kate Bevan-Baker, fiddle; Justin Merdsoy, sound technician.

Lyrics

It is a charmin’ pleasure, As on thro’ de Waltz we go,
Or foot a Polka measure, Wid a light bombastic toe.
An’ more so wid de beauty, Whose hearts your own you call,
“De graceful” am your duty, In a Color’d Fancy Ball.

Now good gemblemen pray be easy, De ball am you see begun;
Dere am beauty an music to please ye, It’s wulgar to kick up dis fun.

Through de Waltz’s mazy round, Yallar Gals advancing,
Easy, graceful, turn dem so, Dat’s de style ob dancing.
Now to a chair go lead your luber, Squeeze her hand, den turn your eye,
Den ask her if she hab not discuber, Dat all for lub you mean to die?

It is a charming pleasure, As on thro’ de Waltz we go,
Or foot a Polka measure, Wid a light bombastic toe.

Regard dat lubly Wenus, Wid de beautiful great big head.
As she Prombernards between us, Wid shoes ob a hansum red,
Oh look how she’ll turn and twist it, As she puts her back to de band.
I neber know’d no one resist it, Cos its jist what nobody can stand.

Let us gib her a glass ob cold broth, Wid a fork an’ some cheese stuck up on it;
When she goes if de wedder should freeze, We’ll lend her a hat for a bonnet.

Dere’s a Nig in a new Joinville tie, An’ his Coat button’d up to bustin,
Choakin’ wid anger an ready to die, Cos its de suit he look wust in.
How de debil dat Nig war let into de Ball, Is what I should much like to know?
He better off we don’t want him at all, So suppose we invite him to go.

He wont, for he likes de pleasure, Right on thro’ de Waltz to go.
Or foot a Polka measure, Wid a light bombastic toe.

Publication Information

Publisher: “The Encyclopedia of Music No. 114: A Selection of the Most Popular Ethiopian Songs.” B. Williams, H, Paternoster Row & 170 Gt. Dovor Rd. London.