Groundhog

The song is a hunting scene played for laughs. In the verses the Dillards sang in 1963, the old sow whistles and the little pigs dance down in the forks of the branch, then Grandpa is told to get his dog and Pappy to get his gun, Jimmy turns up with a ten-foot pole to twist the groundhog out of its hole, and Sally comes along with groundhog grease all over her chin. Each verse ends with the title called out twice.

The song was recorded again and again in the revival and bluegrass years. Mike Seeger played it, with Bob Baker singing and playing guitar, on the Folkways LP American Banjo Tunes & Songs in Scruggs Style (1957). It is on the Folkways album The Doc Watson Family (1968), the Dillards recorded it for Back Porch Bluegrass (Elektra, 1963), and the Stanley Brothers’ version appeared on a Starday banjo album, Banjo in the Hills. More recent bluegrass recordings include Jim Mills’s Bound to Ride (Sugar Hill, 1998).