Who Dat?

This is a roofing slate painted by a high school student from New York state who is volunteering in St. Bernard Parish east of New Orleans this week with Operation Southern Comfort. This and dozens of other beautifully painted slates will be sold to raise funds for OSC at the 4th Annual Crawfish Festival at the New York State Fairgrounds on Saturday, May 7, 2011. Please come and enjoy yourself!

The slates were original roofing material from a creole farmhouse in St. Bernard Parish. The roof didn't survive Katrina but the individual slates have.

Who Dat?...

Lately the Saints and their fans came to love it, sing and cheer it, and adopt it. Eventually the Saints copyrighed the rights to it for T-shirt purposes. They were recently more or less forced to give up that position, though the story isn't over yet. Who Dat? seems to be returning to the public domain. There is justice in the world.

And the history of Who Dat?...

Who Dat? was originally written in a poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, for whom our Dunbar Center in Syracuse is named, in the 19th century. There are a million stories about  minstrel show and jazz iterations of Who Dat?  Along the way it made its way into a Marx Brothers routine. And of course it is found widely in music today.

This version is from 1937:

Who dat up there who’s dat down there
Who dat up there who dat well down there
Who’s dat up there, sayin’ who’s dat down there
When I see you up there well who’s dat down there Who dat inside who’s dat outside
Who’s dat inside who dat well outside
Who’s dat inside, singin’ who’s dat outside
When I see up there well who’s dat out there Button up your lip there big boy
Stop answerin’ back
Give you a tip there big boy
Announce yourself jack Who dat up there who’s dat down there
Who dat up there who dat, well down there
Who’s dat up there, singin’ who’s dat down there
When I see you up there you bum
Well who’s dat down there Who dat

Bob Crowe and St. Louis Daily Photo featured Who Dat? on May 14, 2010. Hi Bob!