Added: 4 years ago
From: maolchalium
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  • girl, interrupted.

  • @twigagawizard :D best movie ever

  • this song we have at shool

  • this song we had at school

  • Not gonna lie, Cotton feels so good on the skin.

  • He's fast at singing this but it fantastic all the same.

  • pikkabilledee!!!

  • Like this if Bashcraft sent you here

  • worst rendition ever of this song is by ABBA

  • my grandmother-who was white, used to pick cotton with black people.

    she was not a slave and neither were they.

  • @3fitzgrld they maybe weren't slaves but they weren't free either. their living conditions were very bad and their payment almost zero for a, very often, extremely hard work. i cant see why to dont call them slaves if they were forced to live like ones

  • @magvangos - then anybody who has to work hard as heck for someone else is theoretically a 'slave'. Being a slave and having low paid and tough working conditions are still two different things.

  • this number ig singing to school

  • oh lordy gona pick a bale of wheat grass, oh lordy gona pick a bale a day! (Legend of Hobo...)

  • das wurde zur ablenkung von der vielen arbeit gesungen

  • I feel like picking up a bale of cotton

  • i used to sing this in school

  • we must sing this song in school...

    it was really funny...xD

  • too much joy in his version. wasnt meant to be a celebration. just to get minds of their work.

  • @drinkspecials A lot of work songs become folk music though. It's the soul of it that gets preserved. This is just the same song used for a different occasion.

  • OMG... I love this song :)

  • I sang this song at the Sherman Lake YMCA Camp XD

  • @ICPinkFuzzyBunnies GO TO SHERMAN LAKE NOW!!!!

  • He was such a liitle toe tapper. Wonder what Leadbelly would have thougt of this version

  • How could I not? Gram, Gramps, Oh Lordy the memories!!!

  • i love this song

  • I like this song....It is catchy...buht then you're stuck listenin to it over an over....so it gets annoyin....buht you wanna listen to it,,,,,,like I told a friend::: its an annoying song....if you listen to it more than once.....buht after one time....you're fucked

    10 hours ago · Like

  • This song is super catchy! I can't help but love it! i only like this version...ABBA did a nice version of this song also! teehee! "Me and my buddy gonna pick a bale of cotton!" priceless! hahahhaaa!

  • Oh dear,seems like every song from my childhood memories,brings out nasty racist comments,from both sides.I live in an ever changing community,with ethnic neighbours coming and going,not by choice,but circumstance,and have to "get on with it",,so why the hell do people have to air political comments,instead of just listening to the music?

  • every black person knows this song. Including me. we start singing this in class one day.

  • lol ohhh lowdy

  • This was played in the movie The Jerk with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in the last scene. 

  • This is a song about farm-work. Not about continental hegemony. Not about racial justice. Farm work. And this version is amazingly soulful, even when held up against Ledbelly's version.

  • why have black people always been so cool lol.Im white and we are not cool

  • @ItsWEAH speak for yourself

  • Geiler Song :DD

    ohh lordy pick a bale of Cotton

    ohh lordy pick a bale o day

  • AY!

    AY DIS SONG RAY-CISS!

  • I sing this at college when there's a chance. Gotta stave off the boredom somehow with a motivational upbeat song.

  • I sung this in elementary school, too, translated into Spanish, in Argentina.

    Un mar blanco, negros trabajando, todo el día cosechan algodón.

    Oh Oh Oh Oh, que se acabe el día,

    Oh Oh Oh Oh, que se ponga el sol

  • @Tarsila30

    hay una version en castellano? maravilloso!

  • We learn this song in primary school in The Netherlands!

  • I sang this in elementary school. I am not at all kidding. This is what comes from living in Georgia

  • @RedVelvet777 I also did this, we had to dance to it while our teacher sang. it was.. weird to say the least.

  • may u tell the lord that it not our fight it the lords but u see he delivered us

  • Poor white people picked cotton, too. My mother was a child, in the day, she went to the cotton field with her mom and older sisters when they worked. They rented a farm here in N. Texas and were displaced when the gov. built a lake. By the 50's, cotton was being picked by a "red-headed cotton-picker", a machine , the chute on top was painted red where it tossed bolls into the tall wire-sided trailers. Basically, rural white poor and black poor had much in common.

  • Everything ends up being racist, this song is about the life and times in the past. it's over move on with your lives and enjoy the music.

  • What a silly ass version of a song that an someone like Lonnie Donegan shouldn never have tried to cover

  • if you dont like the music f... off elsewhere like the artic and listen to the whales

  • I'm puzzled, how does one actually "jump down"..?

  • @TheDancingKetchup

    i think it means that you jump to some where else

  • Cotton picking will be back in America again in 2 years start movin to the farms now folks and start pickin my cotton!

  • Haha, we sang this song in our music lessons.;D

  • isnt this a slave song?

  • @BountyHuntFH95 lol yeeeeaaaahhh

  • @ghglgh o well that explains alot

  • @BountyHuntFH95  yea

  • @BountyHuntFH95 No it's a 'work song' that first appeared in the 1930's. Sung by both black and white workers who were paid by how many bales they picked.

  • @maolchalium Im gonna go pick some cotton....(A.K.A clean my room)

  • @maolchalium sing this around a bunch of black people and we will see how much of a "work song" it is.

  • @maolchalium YAH. Sharecroppers

    

  • Nicht schlecht,aber nicht meine richtung von musik

  • we learned this at school X3

  • OMG, haven't heard this song in a jillion years, yet am sure I have an early childhood memory of learning to sing it -- and am equally sure that all the while, I was singing, "Pick a bale of cotton -- jump down turn around, pick a bale OF HAY"...!

    LOL It's "pick-a-bale-a-DAY"

    (did I have a plan, at the age of 4, to promote agricultural diversification - ??) : )

  • should be up there with th greats

  • should be pickin two bails a day get back in that field

  • @exilemick i know what you mean.i was just mentioning the mongols as an example.

  • It's a workin' mans song and doesn't belong to anybody black or white. It's a braggin song like John Henry- cotton picking was no party for blacks or whites. Newsflash! Whites picked cotton too- before and after the war.... This song is a celebration of a hard days work and that deserves to be respected and remembered and played. I am pretty sure that a white sharecropper from South Carolina named Willie wrote this in 1874-but I need to check my source geeez.....

  • @Scotchtom11 The difference, of course, is that white men picked cotton a free men, where as black people picked it as slaves. Backbreaking work no matter your color, yes, but at the end of the day, some went home to their own bed, and others were herded back to their masters' slave pens.

  • @AzzyMeg There is no evidence that this song dates to before the war, many reels were published before and after the war. Both blacks and whites picked cotton- big time- as share croppers and workers. Go tell an irishman in a coal mine in 1900 with a lifetime of debt owed to the company that he is not a slave. Walking away was not an option. I dig these bragging songs and the indomitable spirit they project- They all scream "I am proud and you can't take that away from me!"

  • Das errinert mich an den Musikunterricht ;)

  • I truly believe the black race it the most gifted race on this planet.

  • @markeithmm89 And the most beautiful. Asian (indian) is a close 2nd.

  • iAlway's wondered .... iS this a racvist song O_o ?

  • @kontravery146 Not at all. This is a song of the times. They did pick cotton in the old days, thats a FACT. Although it may seem a little pejorative now days, its not. Same thing with Mark Twain's writing. People think its racist that he refers to blacks as niggers.Thats what they called them back then. How could he be expected to write for an audience 100 years in the future? What if the term black is considered racist 100 years from now? A writer today will be called racist in a 100 years.

  • OMG BRILLIANT! THANKYOU

  • Dem white people are a bunch of insensitive, no-good, tyrannical slave-drivers. Never trust a white person, that's what I say. ...ooops, just realized I'm formally white. But never mind, while I have the skin colour of an oppressor, I'm happy when I hear that black people actually managed to keep up spirits, in face of the odds, while... ehr...we, I suppose... made slaves of'em.

  • @bantaar right, because making fun of their speech is so supportive.

  • @gagemonster555 That's a very relevant criticism leveled against me here, I have to say! Well spotted, Gage!

  • @bantaar Indeed. At least you got the 'insensitive' part right.

  • @gagemonster555 Well... let's not overdo it, Gage. While I admit to being prone to jumping to flippant comments and an "destigmitization" use of terms, and even self-irony, I do hope you're not inferring that I admit to being insensitive. My rhetorics may be eccentric, but I never meant to criticize people who were slaves. On the contrary, in fact.

  • @bantaar "...white people are a bunch of insensitive..." followed by "...I'm formally white." is not an admission of insensitivity? Moreover, facetious comments like your original one would be considered insensitive. Admission to being insensitive is clear on your part; perhaps not intentionally insensitive however.

    Suppose an old guy says something along the lines of "Hey, that old coon Obama is doing alright for himself."; This is insensitive to black people with the word coon,

  • @gagemonster555 "...white people are a bunch of insensitive..." followed by "...I'm formally white." is not an admission of insensitivity? you asked. Nope, I don't think so. It may be a bit silly, but it's actually a display of empathy. Reinforced by the context, since I went on to say, "I'm happy when I hear that black people actually managed to keep up spirits, in face of the odds, while... ehr...we, I suppose... made slaves of'em."

  • @bantaar even if the intention is not derogatory.

  • @gagemonster555 My comment was ironic. Any sarcasm was directed against the oppressors, which ought to be fairly obvious.

  • @bantaar Irony or sarcasm was nevertheless at the expense of sensitivity toward the suppressed, just like the example I gave was a complement at the expense of sensitivity in using the word coon.

  • @gagemonster555 There's some truth to that -- but it's not a matter without nuances. I'm one of the persons who don't find any word offensive in itself, regardless of context. Further, I'd argue that the automatic condemnation of anybody employing a particular sociolect, even that of a repressed minority, is counterproductive in the big picture -- since it will actually reinforce an unfair low status of a perfectly valid use of language.

  • @bantaar The condemnation was not of the speech usage, but the intent of mimicry as opposed to actual personal use.

  • @gagemonster555 But mimicry of a dialect isn't necessarily derogative. You seem to jump to that conclusion.

  • @bantaar No conclusions were jumped to. My statement still stands, 'intent of mimicry' is insulting, not the mimicry in and of itself.

    Why do something you would not normally do when regularly given the opportunity to do so? (I.E. why kill a person just because you can)

  • @gagemonster555 My native language is Danish. Am I insulting every English-speaking person by mimickining English here? I guess we won't get much further with this discussion. Your opinion seems to be that using the vernacular of black slaves is always insulting by definition unless it has been learned on mother's knee. I don't -- and so *my* statement also still stands.

  • @bantaar Or more contextually relevant: Why speak in your stereotypical idea of an "(uneducated?) black person"'s speech?

  • white ppl lazy ass aint pick a damn thing

  • @masterp213 LOL, I know that shit is right

  • I liked the part about picking bales of cotton

  • Firstly great version, great artist. So I like it. Looking down the comments, it obviously has relevance and power through time and place. Hopefully, if nothing else we will appreciate that persecution is a major failing of the human being. I wouldn't be confident enough to say we could wipe it out, but I can't be apathetic enough to ignore it where I come across it. It's made us all have a think, by the looks. Thanks.

  • very nice jea jeajea...... yes yes ...

  • we did this song like a thousand times over at skool (st caths) LOL =)

  • @smokemygranny Furthermore, Zimbabwe is NOT under black majority rule. It never was. The only rule it's under is Mugabe rule, he is a dictator and tyrant who kills anyone he pleases. This is simply not a civilized leader, no matter how you look at it. The man is a madman and beast. But apparently that is preferable to you than a civilized, safe country with a high standard of living (highest in Africa for BLACKS and whites) simply because it was white ruled. You're a savage...

  • @goldsmice

    I hope you can respect my point of view and the fact I did not resort to insulting you, because I respect your point of view, you are right to be concerned about all oppresion. You tube did have videos on their tv channel about farmers in Zimbabwe learning how to defend themselves.

    Whatever happened, just because it is in the past, does not make it right, or means it does not leave a legacy, black, white, yellow or red, we all bleed the same colour, we all feel pain.

    Respect.

  • @smokemygranny I am sorry for insulting you - I wish I hadn't done it. I do respect your point of view.

  • @goldsmice

    Thankyou my friend, I appreciate that.

    Anyway we all have something in common here, GOOD MUSIC.

    Lets forget our differences, the sooner we unite, the sooner we can bring peace to this world.

    Respect,

    GRANNY.

  • @smokemygranny Every patch of land on the planet was originally taken over by someone, often by force. The land that was taken over by white settlers in Rhodesia was previously taken over from some other African tribe by force, and before that, was taken from some other tribe, etc etc. America was taken away from the Indians, the Normans took England away from the Saxons, etc. That's the past. In the here and now, Zimbabwe under black rule is a shithole compared to white Rhodesia.

  • @goldsmice

    What I object to is YOU dismissing the slavery issue as just 'all that stuff, and it does not matter anymore,' and you call me savage and a scumbag.

    You need to go to Port Royal in Kingston and visit the holding cells they crammed the newly arrived slaves into, prior to selling them, or maybe the hanging trees or whipping posts etc on the old plantations in jamaica.

    The treatment of the farmers disgusts me but you can not justify it by dismissing what happened before its all wrong.

  • @smokemygranny OK apparently you believe that what is going on in the former Rhodesia with Robert Mugabe's tyranny and murder of whites (and blacks) is justified because "what goes around, comes around." In other words, it's OK with you because the whites DESERVE to be killed and dispossessed. Which makes you a scumbag of the first order, but I'm apparently not going to change your mind.

  • @goldsmice You seem to be very good at twisting peoples words and justifying your argument by not only resorting to insults but also lying about what I said. I do not support Mugabe and would get great pleasure from seeing him thrown into hell. I have lived in Africa and Jamaica and have seen and heard how slavery and the legacy of 'white rule' still affects everything and everyone. I do not support the murder or killing of anyone, black or white.

  • I did this for music at school and the black pppeople were treated as slaves.

  • @ClutchFan1971 No shit, it's something that's totally ignored in America...there was white slavery for most of America's early days. There were also a lot of penal colonies in what became America-most people think Australia was the only place with these, but America had lots of them. Most of the prisoners actually did nothing, and were sent to America for the "crime" of being Irish or Catholic during Oliver Cromwell's rule of England. These people were treated as slaves.

  • aye fae south. glesgsa

  • enjoy yir cotton socks. remember were the cum fae. those people dont go home in caddilacs. the overseer does.[ aboot springburn maryhill this man taught single handedly how to play and feel when the english wi bools in there mooths were leading the blind

  • Lonnie was An AUSSIE :))

  • I didn't say that cotton didn't exist during slavery. I said that even white folk picked cotton during slavery days.

  • Aside from Leadbelly's best version ever.

  • @HiWayLady49

    Sorry, but you're misinformed. Cotton plantations thrived during slavery, and Eli Whitney created the cotton gin which further strengthened the enslavement of African Americans. So, YES, COTTON EXISTED DURING SLAVERY. It expanded it.

  • I wonder if anyone has thought of the history of this song. Yes, the beat is happy but the context is saddening. This is referring to the torturous and immoral slave labor, and how overworked they were on cotton plantations. I understand the importance of music in the fields for slaves, but I think people are completely disregarding the history.

  • @ClutchFan1971 Thank you very much!!! That is my favorite diatribe. I am tired of having to defend my southern heritage just because I'm white. My family never owned a slave. None of them did...But Three brothers were passing by and 'sold' their widowed sister and children to 3Xgrt grandpa. (they were ALL white) The usual time for indentured servitude was seven years. She was probably one of the few lucky ones as most 'servants' were treated worse than slaves. This is documented fact. Thanks

  • @1802ibrahim you're implying that non-american countries are pro-slavery

  • This is our car song song from the early 1970's.

  • Oh My Word this is SO awesome....HOT DAMN!!!

  • thats a little bit funny :D we do this in the musiclesson ^^ sry i am not good in english xD

  • i love dancing jive!

  • QUESTION?? :))))

    someone in my Unit mentioned that they thought , that Lonnie , was born in Australia ??? would appriciate ajy knowledge ;)) Thanks

  • I always thought he was Irish, so a scotsman eh with an Irish name, maybe his folks were irish, who knew!!!!!

  • Not that unusual. The South Eastern Scots and the Ulster Irish have been tooing and afroing for hunderds of years if not thousands. Scotland is named after an Irish tribe called the Scotii who moved there about 1500 years ago. Glasgow has two footbal teams, Rangers and Celtic. Up the boys in blue.

  • Well thanks for the info, you are indeed correct as Lonnie was born 29 April 1931in Glasgow, Scotland, all these years I thought he was Irish/ I stand corrected.

  • @maolchalium mon the hoops...

  • @maolchalium (South-western) :-)

  • @ukuwi he was a tim so yea

  • @ukuwi If you want a GOOD clip of Lonnie have a look at the clip he does with Chas and Dave. That is great. Pick a Bale of Cotton

  • @ukuwi I'm of scot/ irish descent but we all come Northern europe..100% Celt

  • Fantastic

  • this guy is from scotland if you can belive it lol

  • This should be Wall Street's work song after they are sent home--to a state prison, that is.

  • I love it^^

  • :] i love this song, it's such a good one. i love my mom for exposing me to like every kind of music

  • HAMMA:D

    zu geil <3

    wir singen es zur zeit in musik ;D

  • haha you said geil :D

  • The song and the pic don't match belive that they wasn't happy doing that shit if you ever read there testimonies you'd see why they wrote most of them songs. I wonder who sang this song? And are they in anyway relating it too there life listen to Lightin Hopkins "Picking Cotton"

  • @PeaceAndJustice357 I listen to Leadbelly and feel he done it but lonnie made me know the song I wouldn't know with out him

    I am still learning peace

  • Lonnie, the supreme musician...

  • I love this more each time I view it

  • lonnie is an all time great my old mans a dustman?

    skiffle and nancy whiskey?

    british at it´s best

  • We heard this in my world history class. It brings back memories.

  • i wish they still did today

  • We used to sing this at school!

  • I did this is my primary school prodction !!

  • This is such an excellent presentation that I will dream of it forever!

  • WOW.

    101,989 views

    My top YouTube makeover.

    I would like to say that I owe it all to Susan and...

    to my stylist...

    ..and...

    a little bit of help from Lonnie.

  • yea gotta give it to you, its pretty good, old lonnie had his last with this song

  • @maolchalium I'd love to know about the pictures that you use for this.

  • @maolchalium ??????why your stylist?

  • Spirit of Steve Martin!

  • If we buried our history how would we know not to make the same mistakes again? BTW, the British aided the American South in the American Civil War so how are they void of guilt in this situation? The Irish weren't free of guilt either, many of the Irish immigrants became overseers of slaves etc. Trying to hide songs like this and pretend nothing happened would be shameful.

  • The British didnt help the South

  • They did read a book

  • they didnt learn to read

  • your an idiot, Lonnie is not an American and this song is not racist

  • dude, no need to swear so much. Yes theres no blues in it, thats because its a different style, skiffle. It could be worse, it could be remade by some crackpot Rap artist. Live and let live :)

  • White Americans also sang this song and Lead belly had no problem with it, you are just ignorant go away

  • lonnie d,s version is the best, so full of life and soul, he put fun into a miserable song. just like elvis did with thats alright mama

  • Lonnie is not an American, and white Americans sang this song also while working.

  • As an african american the N-word comments are extremely uncalled for. I guess it just shows what kind of world we still live in

  • pick a bale of cotton a day and the world wil get better

  • @Gqlsuguy Yea, still alot of idiots out there,

  • @Gqlsuguy Usually white people tend to show their ass behind close doors like nazis then in public. .. The reason why many blacks got this far, is because we had to talk to white people the right way. They're like vicious dogs ready to snap any second. So like a dog we had to talk to them in a calm non violent soothing way. thus dog will be obedient.

  • LOL...XDDDDDD

  • Wonderful! Thanks for this recording (and for Rock Island Line, too).

    Hearing good old Lonnie again takes me back to the carefree days of my childhood.

  • geil xD

  • jump down, turn around, gero geht jetzt kacken.

    :D

  • xDDD du stinker :D

    lad mal das video von heute mitm popcorn aufn pc hoch

  • XDDDD

  • nice video

  • nice!

  • ty ive been trying to find out