“Hop High My Lulu Gal” is a traditional song with no known author. SecondHandSongs lists it as a song set to the family of tunes known as “Miss McLeod’s Reel,” “Hop Light Ladies” and “Did You Ever See the Devil, Uncle Joe?”.
The words are a short exchange. The singer asks where she got those high-top shoes and the fine dress she wears, and is told the shoes came from a railroad man and the dress from a driver in the mine. The chorus is the refrain “hop high, my Lulu gal.” In the next verse he offers to pawn his watch, his chain, his gold wedding ring, even his wagon and team, to pay Lulu’s fine, and in the last she answers where she has been: in the pen with rough and rowdy men, and she is going back again.
John Reischman and the Jaybirds recorded it for their album The Road West (Corvus, 2005), with Trisha Gagnon singing lead and playing bass, Reischman on mandolin, Nick Hornbuckle on banjo and Greg Spatz on fiddle. Dirk Powell recorded it on his album Hand Me Down (1999). The string band Crooked Still included it, as “Lulu Gal,” on their debut album Hop High (Footprint, 2004).
