Bird in the Cage - Roy Rogers
Music by Spade Cooley and his Buckle Busters; the album is Decca 226, "Roy Rogers Calling Cowboy Square Dances."
The full title is Birdie in the Cage and Three Rail Pen, fancy talk for a circle of three dancers around the birdie/crow. The other dances in the three-record set are
- Round that Couple, Go Thru and Swing
- Boy Around a Boy, Girl Around a Girl
- Lady Round the Lady and the Gent Solo
- Chase that Rabbit, Chase that Squirrel
- Round the Couple and Swing When You Meet
Tony Parkes comments: "The Roy Rogers recordings have always intrigued me. For starters, did you notice that each couple is directed to dance with an inactive couple four times? This would require five couples in a set. Did Roy lose count? Or was something else going on? Also, "change your right-hand lady by the left hand round" is a mirror image of the normal Southern/Western do-si-do. The opposite lady in a circle of four would more logically be referred to as "the left-hand lady," and all the similar figures I know of go "opposite right, partner left" in whatever order. I think it's possible that Roy misremembered this call from his youth. (As I understand things, he was a caller before he became famous as a singer and film star, and his two SD albums were made later, after he hadn't been calling for years.)
"His GR&L patter is always the same. When I first played the Decca/Coral album, I thought he was saying "Meet your partner, walk slow" when it came time to promenade home. But on his RCA Victor album, whose tempos are slower (more like 132), it's clear that he's saying "waltz the floor." There are references in books to the use of "waltz" to mean "dance clockwise around a partner while moving counterclockwise around the dancing space," without regard to the type of steps or music (cf. "Bouquet Waltz")."
Subjects: Southern / Appalachian / Four-couple squares
Tags: Bird in the Cage, Roy Rogers
Item Relations
| This Item | is related to | Item: Chase that Rabbit - Roy Rogers |
| This Item | is related to | Item: Bird in the Cage - D. B. Hendrix, 1952 |
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Music by Spade Cooley and his Buckle Busters; the album is Decca 226, "Roy Rogers Calling Cowboy Square Dances."
The full title is Birdie in the Cage and Three Rail Pen, fancy talk for a circle of three dancers around the birdie/crow. The other dances in the three-record set are
- Round that Couple, Go Thru and Swing
- Boy Around a Boy, Girl Around a Girl
- Lady Round the Lady and the Gent Solo
- Chase that Rabbit, Chase that Squirrel
- Round the Couple and Swing When You Meet
Tony Parkes comments: "The Roy Rogers recordings have always intrigued me. For starters, did you notice that each couple is directed to dance with an inactive couple four times? This would require five couples in a set. Did Roy lose count? Or was something else going on? Also, "change your right-hand lady by the left hand round" is a mirror image of the normal Southern/Western do-si-do. The opposite lady in a circle of four would more logically be referred to as "the left-hand lady," and all the similar figures I know of go "opposite right, partner left" in whatever order. I think it's possible that Roy misremembered this call from his youth. (As I understand things, he was a caller before he became famous as a singer and film star, and his two SD albums were made later, after he hadn't been calling for years.)
"His GR&L patter is always the same. When I first played the Decca/Coral album, I thought he was saying "Meet your partner, walk slow" when it came time to promenade home. But on his RCA Victor album, whose tempos are slower (more like 132), it's clear that he's saying "waltz the floor." There are references in books to the use of "waltz" to mean "dance clockwise around a partner while moving counterclockwise around the dancing space," without regard to the type of steps or music (cf. "Bouquet Waltz")."