“Old Tyler”

Description

"Old (Tyler/Napper) was a good old dog, We thought he'd treed a coon, But when we come to find it out Old Tyler was barking at the moon...." The song tells of Tyler's eccentricities and how Allegheny finally shot the animal

Notes

This is a bit of a conundrum. The Ritchie family's "Old Tyler" is a coherent song, but its first verse floats, and the other songs here are all mixed up. And, of course, the name of the dog varies, e.g. Hudson's text seems to call him "Napper."

Then there is the Brown collection, which has a pair of fragments about "Napper" or "Old Napper." It's clearly not the same as Old Tyler; Napper is a human who fools around with the singer's wife. But the form hints that there is continuous variation between the two. - RBW

Cross references

• cf. "Napper"

References

1. Hudson 76, p. 203, "Old Napper" (1short text, mostly floating verses)
2. Ritchie-SingFam, pp. 69-70, "[Old Tyler]" (1 text, 1 tune)
3. Silber-FSWB, p. 395, "Old Rattler" (1 text, evidently this song from the verses, though it has the chorus from "Old Rattler")
4. Roud #5712
5. BI, JRSF069