"Walk Along John", also known as "Oh, Come Along John", is an American song

American popular music

American popular music had a profound effect on music across the world. The country has seen the rise of popular styles that have had a significant influence on global culture, including ragtime, blues, jazz, swing, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk, disco, house, techno,...

 written for the blackface

Blackface

Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...

 minstrel show

Minstrel show

The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....

 stage in 1843

1843 in music

- Events :*February 6 - The Virginia Minstrels perform the first minstrel show .*November 13 - Gaetano Donizetti's final opera Dom Sébastien is premiered at the Paris Opera....

. The lyrics of the song are typical of those of the early minstrel show. They are largely nonsense

Nonsense

Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. Sometimes in ordinary usage, nonsense is synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous...

 about a black

Black people

The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

 man who boasts about his exploits.

The chorus

Refrain

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...

 goes:

Come along John, Come along John,

Come along John, de fifer's son,

Ain't you might glad dat your day's work done.

"Walk Along John" is a likely source of inspiration for the later minstrel hit, "Old Dan Tucker

Old Dan Tucker

"Old Dan Tucker", also known as "Ole Dan Tucker", "Dan Tucker", and other variants, is a popular American song. Its origins remain obscure; the tune may have come from oral tradition, and the words may have been written by songwriter and performer Dan Emmett...

". Verses in both songs are quite similar, such as this one:

Johhny lay on de rail road track,

He tied de engine on his back;

He pair's his corn wid a rail road wheel,

It gib 'im de tooth ache in de heel.

Compare with this verse, commonly found in versions of "Old Dan Tucker":

Old Daniel Tucker wuz a mighty man,

He washed his face in a fryin' pan;

Combed his head wid a wagon wheel

And he died wid de toofache in his heel.