# Jump down turn around...what song is this? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 8, 2005, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603 "2005-07-08T16:25:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/21 "2005-07-09T10:42:08Z")
By George, I think I’ve got it! [Raffi!](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000003HA/qid=1120906517/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/103-0373359-9544657?v=glance&s=music) ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/22 "2005-07-09T10:49:28Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > I could swear that I’ve heard a song with that refrain, only it was in a movie or a blues album or something, and it was several voices singing it repeatedly. For some reason my brain thinks it might have been in “The Blues Brothers” but I don’t know. It was a modern song, not an old folk song. Pick a Bale of Cotton wasn’t in the Blues Brothers, but it _was_ in [The Jerk](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079367/). It’s the song the whole family is singing at the very beginning and very end of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Nature\_s\_Call](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nature_s_call/32/19006_2.png) [@Nature\_s\_Call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nature_s_Call)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/23 "2005-07-09T13:04:57Z")
Could it be “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”? Yeah, heel, toe, docie do Come on baby, let’s go boot scootin’ Oh cadillac, blackjack, baby meet me out back We’re gonna boogie Oh, **get down, turn around** , go to town Boot scootin’ boogie It was featured in the movie “Kevin of the North” (didn’t see it - thank you Google) ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/24 "2005-07-09T13:47:41Z")
> [@Linty Fresh](#): > > Pick a Bale of Cotton wasn’t in the Blues Brothers, but it _was_ in [The Jerk](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079367/). It’s the song the whole family is singing at the very beginning and very end of the movie. Oh! Oh! That was it! Oh wow! _That’s_ what’s been going through my head for 3 days. Thank you! Man, what a minor thing to get so bugged about. But now my brain can relax. ---
**Author:** ![marque\_elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71c47a/32.png) [@marque\_elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marque_elf)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/25 "2005-07-09T14:33:50Z")
Dangermom, I’m glad that you found your song. The song that I was thinking you were after is not by **Traffic** , but by another 1960s English group called **Jethro Tull**. the song is _The Teacher_. the lyric is: “Jump up, look around, have yourself some fun. No use sitting there and hating everyone. No man’s an island, a castle isn’t home. The nest is full of nothing when the bird has flown.” Isn’t it interesting that so many different kinds of songs have such a similar lyric in them? ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/26 "2005-07-09T15:28:57Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > Oh! Oh! That was it! Oh wow! _That’s_ what’s been going through my head for 3 days. Thank you! No problem. Anything for a fellow librarian. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![vtynos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f07891/32.png) [@vtynos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vtynos)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/27 "2005-07-09T16:46:17Z")
Although it’s not the one you’re after, Atlanta rapper Ludacris uses this refrain in the bridge to his track “The Potion.” It’s a radio track, maybe even a single from his latest album. Quite catchy. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/28 "2005-07-09T17:21:42Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > Oh! Oh! That was it! Oh wow! _That’s_ what’s been going through my head for 3 days. Thank you! > > Man, what a minor thing to get so bugged about. But now my brain can relax. Bwuh? It’s the same as the Leadbelly song, isn’t it? Maybe not the same recording, but the same song… ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/29 "2005-07-09T20:44:57Z")
Harry Belafonte sang the song during his Concert in Carnegie Hall in 1961. My mother has the album, and played it constantly when I was a wee **Shodan**. I can still sing all the songs, verbatim, except for _The Click Song_, sung (in !Xhosa) by Miriam Makeba. It has a bunch of glottal clicks. [pointless anecdote]We had a missionary from South Africa stay with us for about a week when I was young. He spoke !Xhosa, and my dear mother played the song for him and asked for a translation. If you ever wanted to see a black man turn white, that was the moment. The lyrics are apparently **not at all** what a genteel missionary would care to say to the sheltered, middle class, white, clueless suburban housewife who is his hostess. He said it was a “traditional wedding song”, and offered up descriptions to the bride of what she should expect. He declined further explanations, and my mother did not press the issue. [/pa] Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2005, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/30 "2005-07-09T20:49:23Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Bwuh? It’s the same as the Leadbelly song, isn’t it? Maybe not the same recording, but the same song… Sorry **Ogre** , I guess it’s the same song, but since I could only remember the general tone of the song, not much of the words, it was the recording I was after. So, you were right too. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/31 "2005-07-11T04:16:19Z")
The funniest version is the New Christy Minstrels who sang it on an album my father had. These people were the inspiration for the New Main Street Singers in _Mighty Wind_ and they were whiter than Osmonds. Hearing them perkily singing a slave song would have made Booker T. Washington join the Black Muslims. Strangely, on the same album (a composition album of patriotic songs), there was a cut of _Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd_, another famous slave song (and atlas), sung by Polish/Israeli/American folk-singer and actor [Theodore Bikel](http://www.bikel.com/) (perhaps best known for originating the role of Baron von Trapp in _Sound of Music_) that was one of the best renditions I’ve ever heard (though I’d give the final edge to Richie Havens version on _The Civil War_ miniseries soundtrack). ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/32 "2005-07-11T17:36:46Z")
It predates Lead belly. By decades. Regard this link on history and lore of [Cotton and Cotton Picking](http://historywired.si.edu/detail.cfm?ID=210). About half way down the page. Slaves sang this song. My wife, a music teacher in a thoroughly integrated district, chose this song last year for her grades 3-5 chorus to sing at the end of the year. The African-American parents were overwhelmingly supportive of the choice. ( I wondered if there would be a negative backlash to a slave song being sung by the kids ). Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603/33 "2005-07-11T20:56:33Z")
> [@](#): > > It predates Lead belly. By decades. Yep. I pointed that out in my very first post. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jump-down-turn-around-what-song-is-this/311603.md?page=1)