Wash Day Is Every Day

“I’m Dana Williams, I was born October 6, 1919.”

“Now tell something Dana, don’t tell me you don’t know nothing!” (Lillian Diehl)

“Well, being I’m not as old as you are, you know more than I do. But we had to rub the clothes on a rub board.” (Dana Williams)

“Yeah, I meant to bring a rub board, and I forgot.” (Lillian Diehl)

“I haven’t got one. I don’t know what happened to mine. And then, if it was cold weather, we had to take an axe and cut the ice out and put it in a pot and melt it to wash the clothes with. We had a bar of soap to wash it with – old Octagon soap. We didn’t have no washing powders. And you had to cut that soap up and put it in the wash to to make your suds like they use now for when they have powders – Tide and all those expensive powders that people use. And we had wrung our clothes on the clothesline and that bleached the white clothes. Now you have to buy bleach to put in it and make some more money for someone else, you know.” (Dana Williams)

From the Album Here I Stand: Elder’s Wisdom; Children’s Song (Smithsonian Folkways)

Pour ashes into the hopper
When the hopper gets full
Pour the water down
Pick up the lye into the bucket
When you pick up the bucket
Don’t spill it on the gournd

Wash Day is every day
Every day is Wash Day
Wash Day is every day
Wash it on down

Put the fat of the hog meat into the pot
Mix it with the lye; cook it all around
Pour it in the tube; when it turns white
For a couple of day then soap yourself down

Wash Day is every day
Every day is Wash Day
Wash Day is every day
Wash it on down

With a big old tank collect rainwater
Pack up the clothes; head to the spring
With a pot and tub boil the water
In the wintertime the clothes do freeze
Wash Day is every day
Every day is Wash Day
Wash Day is every day
Wash it on down

With a battlin-board shaped like a paddle
With a long flat handle of hickory wood
Give it a whack; then start singing
No time to think; do what we should

Wash Day is every day
Every day is Wash Day
Wash Day is every day
Wash it on down

Words & music by Larry Long
Copyright Larry Long 1996 | BMI

*Collectively written by Larry Long with youth from Oakman rural Alabama through the Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song program in partnership with PACERS Small Schools Cooperative and Community Celebration of Place. Inspired by Mrs. Ruby Lee Banks Walton, Mrs. Lillian Dehl, Mrs. Dana Williams, Mr. William Sammy Walton

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Here I Stand: Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song is exclusively available on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

Larry’s music is available on Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify, Bandcamp and select e-tailers