Skip to My Lou

"Skip to My (The) Lou" (Roud 3433) is a popular American folk song and partner-stealing dance from the 1840s.

Carl Sandburg, poet and biographer of President Abraham Lincoln, writes that "Skip-to-my-Lou" was a popular party game in Lincoln's youth in southern Indiana, with verses such as "Hurry up slow poke, do oh do", "I'll get her back in spite of you", "Gone again, what shall I do", and "I'll get another girl sweeter than you".

A lone boy in the center of the moving circle of couples sings, "Lost my partner, what'll I do?"

Sections of the song arranged by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane are sung to the tunes of "Kingdom Coming" and "Yankee Doodle".

In the 1951 film Across the Wide Missouri it is sung by Clark Gable (while playing a Jew's Harp) and others throughout the movie.

In the classic Western The Searchers (1956), Ken Curtis uses the song to serenade Vera Miles.

The song has been recorded by various artists including Lead Belly, Pete Seeger,[7] Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Elizabeth Mitchell, The Blue Sky Boys, Dickie Bishop and His Sidekicks,[8] and Dale Warland Singers, among others.

The song remains a favorite piece performed by various classic choirs with a popular arrangement by Paul Busselberg.