from http://tunearch.org:

“Bonaparte’s Retreat” is a  classic old-time quasi-programmatic American fiddle piece that is generally played in a slow march tempo at the beginning and becomes increasingly more quick by the end of the tune, meant to denote a retreating army. Versions very widely from region to region, some binary and some with multiple parts. One folklore anecdote regarding this melody has it that the original “Bonaparte’s Retreat” was improvised on the bagpipe by a member of a Scots regiment that fought at Waterloo, in remembrance of the occasion.

The American collector Ira Ford (1940) (who seemed to manufacture his notions of tune origins from fancy and supposition, or else elaborately embellished snatches of tune-lore) declared the melody to be an “old American traditional novelty, which had its origin after the Napoleonic Wars.”

He notes that some fiddlers (whom he presumably witnessed) produced effects in performance by drumming the strings with the back of the bow and “other manipulations simulating musket fire and the general din of combat.  Pizzicato represents the boom of the cannon, while the movement beginning with Allegro is played with a continuous bow, to imitate bagpipes or fife.”

Arkansas fiddler Absie Morrison (1876-1964) maintained the melody had French and bagpipe connotations.  “Now that’s bagpipe music on the fiddle…That was when (Bonaparte) had to give back, had to give up the battle…This in what’s called minor key, now…It’s French music.”

In fact, the tune has Irish origins, though Burman-Hall could only find printed variants in sources from that island from 1872 onward. “It has been collected in a variety of functions, including an Irish lullaby and a ‘Frog Dance’ from the Isle of Man” (Linda Burman-Hall. “Southern American Folk Fiddle Styles,” Ethnomusicology, vol. 19, #1, Jan. 1975).

Samuel Bayard (1944) concurs with assigning Irish origins for “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” and notes that it is an ancient Irish march tune with quite a varied traditional history. The ‘ancient march’ is called “Eagle’s Whistle (1) (The)” or “Eagle’s Tune (The),” which P.W. Joyce (1909) said was formerly the marching tune of the once powerful O’Donovan family.

Bayard’s primary scope of collecting was in western Pennsylvania in the mid-20th century, where he found the tune still current in fiddle repertoire, though he remarked on its popularity in various parts of the South. His Pennsylvania version has a somewhat simpler melodic outline than most of the other recorded American sets, and, although he notes that these sets vary considerably–even in the number of parts which a version may contain–he finds they are clearly cognate, and all show resemblance’s and common traits indicating derivation from the “The Eagle’s Whistle.” Continue reading →

from http://holdoldbald.tumblr.com:

One story claims that a “pig’s foot” is a tool used by a blacksmith (or alternatively, at a foundry) to hold a bit of pig iron (“pig” iron…how convenient) in a fire. While this explanation is nearly entirely wrong, there may be a grain of truth in it, as we will shortly see.

The fact is that this tune, like many, has seen its title change slightly over time.

This song derives from an old slave folktale which later became a chant and finally a tune. The story goes like this. A slave had just stolen from his master’s larder a shoat (in other variants just its haunch) and had hidden the meat beneath his bed sheets (again in other variants it was hidden under the bed itself).

The slave was in his cabin telling his wife of his prize when the master, along with a friend, appeared in the door of the slave’s cabin, requesting that the slave demonstrate his fine skill on the fiddle. Aware that the pig’s foot was exposed and its discovery, which appeared imminent, would cost him a whipping or worse, the slave quickly took down his fiddle and began to play and sing:
Shove that pig’s foot further in the bed
Further in the bed
Further in the bed
Shove that pig’s foot further in the bed
Katie, Katie, Katie, can’t you hear me now

The master and his friend watched the performance with glee while his wife Katie heard the message (hidden in plain sight) and covertly slid the pig’s leg beneath the bedsheets. At the end of the song the master exclaimed, “well, there’s a song I’ve never heard before!” and he and his friend gave the fiddler a short round of applause before making their exit.

In other variants, the slave’s wife’s name is Ginny, but the story is the same. The tale was a favorite among the miserable slaves who could always benefit from a laugh, especially from a yarn involving a slave pulling such a trick — two tricks really — on his loathsome master.

In time it became a field holler and later a fiddle tune. When Marcus Martin’s father learned it from white loggers working along the railroad lines in Western North Carolina, the title had apparently changed. Perhaps they were ignorant of the story and didn’t see why a pig’s foot would be in a bed, so they changed the word to fire. Perhaps they thought “bed” referred to a bed of coals and made, what they thought to be a reference to barbecue, more explicit.

Or perhaps these railroad men were familiar with the tool known as a “pig’s foot” — a short crowbar with a cloven end — and took delight in the idea of the double-entendre permitted by such an image. Because of course, “poking the fire” was a well-known euphemism for the act of sex. Recall the famous story in which James Monroe expressed to Thomas Jefferson his surprise that James Madison was able to engage in carnal acts with a wife as homely as Dolley Madison. Jefferson replied with a broad grin, “My dear young man, I am quite certain that the President does not find the need to admire the mantel whilst he is poking the fire!”