“Muskrat” is a traditional song with no known author. Its question-and-answer form belongs to a family of animal songs in which a creature is asked about some feature of its looks or habits. It is catalogued as Roud 6395 together with “Rattlesnake,” and its muskrat verse asks what makes the animal smell so bad. The earliest date given for the song is a 1925 recording, “Muskrat” by Land Norris on OKeh 40404. The Max Hunter collection preserves a Missouri variant, sung in Springfield on 22 May 1960, that asks the muskrat, a jaybird, a groundhog and a tom cat in turn.
Uncle Dave Macon, the banjo-playing entertainer billed as the “Dixie Dewdrop,” recorded a “Muskrat Medley” with the fiddler Sid Harkreader in New York on 15 April 1925, issued as Vocalion 15101; Macon had made an earlier attempt in July 1924 that was rejected.
The version Doc Watson sings is addressed to the muskrat alone. The muskrat is accused of lying around the farmer’s house and eating everything in it, and of running over the field to eat the corn. The singer promises to track him through the sand, trap him on the bank, skin him, stretch the hide on a plank and sell the hides to keep a pretty girl warm. Watson recorded it as the opening track of Doc Watson & Son (Vanguard, February 1965), a duo album with his son Merle produced by Ralph Rinzler. On this track Watson plays guitar and harmonica and sings alone. Merle Travis also recorded the song at a 1959 session in Boston later released by Rounder.
