[Alternately: “Buffallo Gals,” “Buffallo Gal,” “Buffalo Gal,” “Buffalo Gal”].

To listen to this song (and others) on the Artists Respond to Juba Site, Click Here and/or Here.

The music is from John Hodges’ “Lubly Fan Won’t You Come Out Tonight” (published 1844) with these lyrics presumably by Hodges as well. It is possible that Hodges derived the melody from an older German music hall song “Im Grunewald, im Grunewald ist Holzauktion”.

Hodges’ song became extremely popular during the period, no doubt in part, because of its adaptability to suit regional audiences: contemporaneous variants include “New York Gals,” “Boston Gals,” “Alabama Gals,” “Portsmouth Airs,” “Mobile Gals,” etc. A female analogue of the word “dandy,” “gal” was a derogatory descriptor; to nineteenth-century audiences, it would have been akin to prostitute. The variant “Buffalo Gals, was more specifically about those prostitutes that plied their trade on Canal Street in Buffalo, NY (the termination of the Erie Canal). Of the editions five editions published between 1842 and 1852 in Great Britain that were surveyed for this entry, there was very little variation in the lyrics. The variation that did exist generally contained to dialect.

While regional variants of the song would certainly have been performed by a number of minstrel troupes, “Buffalo Gals,” was the most popular version of the song for publishing and for use in concert programs. Now considered to be a folk song by many, the popularity of “Buffalo Gals” continues to endure into this century. The song has been recorded hundreds of times since at least 1948 with versions by everyone from the Chipmunks to Bruce Springsteen.

Select Recording History:

Springsteen, Bruce. We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. [Bonus Tracks]. Columbia, 22 August 2006.

Weissberg, Eric and Marshall Brickman. Super Size Me Soundtrack. KinkySour Recordings, 08 June 2004.

Gardner, Mark & Rex Rideout. Frontier Favorites: Old-Time Music of the Wild West. Mark Gardner & Rex Rideout, 2003.

Camptown Shakers. Tooth & Nail. Camptown Shakers, 2002.

MacLaren, Malcom. Duck Rock. Island, 1983.

Thin Lizzy. Shads of a Blue Orphanage. Deram, 1972.

Guthrie, Woody. Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs, Vol .2. Folkways, 1964.

The Chipmunks. The Chipmunks Songbook. Pair, 1962.

Oscar Brand. Absolute Nonsense. Riverside, 1948.

Mark Turner