"Boil Them Cabbage Down" (or variants substituting dialectal

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

 "Bile" for "Boil," dialectal "Dem," "'Em" or "That" for "Them," and/or, less frequently, standard "Cabbages" for "Cabbage") is an American folk song

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

.
The word "hoecakes" refers to small cornmeal

Cornmeal

Cornmeal is flour ground from dried maize or American corn. It is a common staple food, and is ground to fine, medium, and coarse consistencies. In the United States, the finely ground cornmeal is also referred to as cornflour. However, the word cornflour denotes cornstarch in recipes from the...

 cakes that were fried in the fire on the blade of a hoe. A breakfast of hoecakes and cabbage soup testifies to the humble origins of this song.
Notable versions of the song have been played by such artists as Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

, Ruby Jane Smith

Ruby Jane Smith

Ruby Jane Smith is an American-born fiddle player, singer, and songwriter in the traditional bluegrass and Americana music genres...

and the Smothers Brothers

Smothers Brothers

The Smothers Brothers are Thomas and Richard , American singers, musicians, comedians and folk heroes. The brothers' trademark act was performing folk songs , which usually led to arguments between the siblings...

.

Lyrics

This simple tune is often used in Old Time Music circles to teach young folks how to play the fiddle

Fiddle

The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

, banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

, mountain dulcimer and/or guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

. The following is the basic tune with the lyrics of the chorus. These tabs assumes you have a diatonically fretted instrument tuned to one of the 1-5-8 open tunings like G-D-G or D-A-D such as you might find on a mountain dulcimer or a stick dulcimer.

2 2 2 2 3 3

Boil them cab-bage down, down.

2 2 2 2 1 1

Turn them hoe-cakes 'round, 'round.

2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3

The on-ly song that I can sing is

2 2 1 1 0

Boil them cab-bage down.

Here's the same tune tabbed for a chromatically fretted instrument like a tenor guitar (or banjo) tuned GDgd (or other 1-5-8-12 tuning).

4 4 4 4 5 5

Boil them cab-bage down, down.

4 4 4 4 2 2

Turn them hoe-cakes 'round, 'round.

4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5

The on-ly song that I can sing is

4 4 2 2 0

Boil them cab-bage down.

There are many different verses to this song, and only a few popular ones are listed here:

Went up on a mountain

(To) give my horn a blow, blow.

Thought I heard my true love say,

"Yonder comes my beau."

CHORUS:

Boil them cabbage down, down.

Turn them hoecakes 'round, 'round.

The only song that I can sing is

Boil them cabbage down.

Possum in a 'simmon tree,

Raccoon on the ground.

Raccoon says, you son-of-a-gun,

Shake some 'simmons down.

(Chorus)

Someone stole my old coon dog.

Wish they'd bring him back.

He chased the big hogs through the fence,

And the little ones through the crack.

(Chorus)

Met a possum in the road,

Blind as he cold be.

Jumped the fence and whipped my dog

And bristled up at me.

(Chorus)

Butter-fly, he has wings of gold.

Fire-fly, wings of flame.

Bed-bug, he got no wings at all,

But he gets there just the same.

(Chorus)