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Blue Tail Fly

Blue Tail Fly

Burl Ives

1947

AvailableFolkAmericana

Lyrics

When I was young and I used to wait on

master,

and give him his plate,

and pass the bottle when he

got dry, and brush away the blue tail fly.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care,

my master's

gone away.

And when he'd ride in the afternoon,

I'd follow on

with a hickory broom. The pony,

being rather

shy, was bitten by the blue tail fly.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care,

my master's

gone away.

One day he rode around the farm, the

flies so numerous they did swarm.

One chanced to

bite him on the thigh,

the devil take the blue

tail fly. Jimmy crack corn,

and I don't care.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care,

my master's

gone away.

The pony ran, he jumped a ditch,

he threw my

master in the ditch. He died, and the jury

wondered why. The verdict

was the blue tail

fly. Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care.

[shrieking] Jimmy crack corn,

and I don't care.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care,

my master's

gone away.

They laid him under a cinnamon tree.

His epitaph is there to see. Beneath this

stone I'm forced to lie, victim of the

blue tail fly. Jimmy crack corn,

and I don't

care. Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care, my

master's gone

away.

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These lyrics are in the public domain and free to use.