Folk Songs in
One Family
The E.L. Simons Folk Song Collection

Listen (.mp3@128 kbps)
Buffalo Girls (incomplete)
Time: 0:44

Buffalo Girls
Time: 0:49

Song Metadata

Lyrics
Buffalo girls are you coming out tonight,
Coming out tonight, coming out tonight?
Buffalo girls are you coming out tonight,
To dance by the light of the moon?

Yes dear boys we're coming out tonight,
Coming out tonight, coming out tonight;
Yes dear boys we're coming out tonight
To dance by the light of the moon.

Danced with a girl with a hole in her stocking,
And her heel kept a-rocking, and her heel kept a-rocking;
Danced with a girl with a hole in her stocking,
She's the prettiest girl in the room.

Note from E.L. Simons (1952): My grandparents sang this song at play-parties around Howard, Kansas in the 1890s. At the parties all musical instruments were forbidden because of the religious scruples of the time, but the parents were not always successful in enforcing this rule, and young people would often smuggle in a French harp or fiddle to accompany a lively tune such as "Buffalo Girls."

This song was first published by Cool White, a blackfaced minstrel in 1844, see Lomax, Folk Song U.S.A. (1947), p. 82, and has been sung under titles such as "Lubly Man," "Lou'siana Gals," and "Danced with a Dolly with a Hole in Her Stocking" right up to the present day.