Ida Red
"Ida Red" is an American traditional song of unknown origins. It is chiefly identified by variations of the chorus:
- Ida Red, Ida Red, I'm a plumb fool 'bout Ida Red.
Verses are unrelated, rather humorous, and free form, changing from performance to performance. Ida Red's identity is unknown, but is feminine in most uses.
The earliest recording is a one by Fiddlin' Powers & Family (Victor 19434, 1924), which includes vocals. There is also an early well-known instrumental by Dykes Magic City Trio, (Brunswick 125, 1927).
Ida Red, the personage, appears in a number of other songs only distantly related to the song "Ida Red".
One, by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers whose "Shootin' Creek" (Columbia 15286-D, 1928), a version of "Cripple Creek", contains verses from "Ida Red", i.e.:
- Ida Red, she's a darned ol' fool,
- Tried to put a saddle on a hump-back mule.
Alan Lomax includes another in his collection of "Negro Bad Men" songs titled "Ida Red". Other than the title, this song is in no way related to the folk song. This song is of a criminal feeling sorry for himself. In every verse he wails to his woman:
- Oh, weep! Oh, my Ida!
There are also several songs that share the same tune but unrelated subject matter. These include "Down The Road" and "Over The Road I'm Bound to Go".
Read more about Ida Red: Western Swing, Bluegrass and Country
Famous quotes containing the words ida and/or red:
“... in every State there are more women who can read and write than the whole number of illiterate male voters; more white women who can read and write than all Negro voters; more American women who can read and write than all foreign voters.”
—National Woman Suffrage Association. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“‘But where can we draw water,’
Said Pearse to Connolly,
‘When all the wells are parched away?
O plain as plain can be
There’s nothing but our own red blood
Can make a right Rose Tree.’”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)