Salty Dog Rag---The Lyrics

I was feeling nostalgic for the Salty Dog Rag pages I put together years back, many mourned computer crashes ago. I'm still dancing the Salty Dog Rag--in fact teaching it to my son now. I thought that old stuff was long, long, gone. But wait! Is that the Wayback Machine I'm reminded of? Thanks to that and a research paper someone posted online citing the old URL, I'm in business again! thanks Wayback Machine. (I'll have you know that I made that site in Notepad before I started messing with NetObjects Fusion...and it shows. Eh? what's that you say? sorry, I'm getting old, can't hear you...)

The Salty Dog Rag is a song recorded by Red Foley, and it's also a Dance

The Salty Dog Rag
 Away down yonder in the state of Arkansas
 Where my great-grandpa met my great-grandma
 They drink apple cider and they get on a jag,
 And they dance all night to the Salty Dog Rag.
 They play an old fiddle like you never heard before,
 They play the only tune that they ever did know-
 It's a ragtime ditty and the rhythm don't drag,
 Now here's the way you dance to the Salty Dog Rag.

Chorus: One foot front, drag it back,
 Then you start to ball the jack.
 You shake and you break and then you sag.
 If your partner zigs, you're supposed to zag.
 Your heart is light, you tap your feet
 In rhythm with that ragtime beat.
 (Just) pack up your troubles in your old kit bag
 And dance all night to the Salty Dog Rag.

 Away down South 'neath the old Southern moon,
 The possum's up a tree and the hounds've treed a coon
 They'll hitch up the buggy to a broken-down nag
 And go out dancing to the Salty Dog Rag.
 They tune up the fiddle and they rosin up the bow.
 They strike a C chord on the old banjo
 Then holler hang on 'cause we ain’t gonna drag.
 Now here's the way you dance to the Salty Dog Rag.
 (Chorus)

In the summer of '95, there was a lively discussion in rec.folk.dancing about how to do the Salty Dog Rag. With the authors' permission, I collected some of these descriptions.

 If you live in or are visiting the San Francisco Area you can still, in 2011, join Changs International Folk Dancers for a Salty Dog Rag.