This is a special edition of Mutt Tunes for Martin Luther King Day.

“Dog Dog”, “My Dog Loves Your Dog”,  “Your Dog Loves My Dog” or “The Dog Song” by James Bevel and Bernard LaFayette,  Nashville Quartet (of the American Baptist Theological Seminary).

Susan read about this song in an article in Bark Magazine.

The song writer, famed civil rights leader Dr. Bernard LaFayette (born July 29, 1940), grew up in Tampa.  Life in Tampa was the inspiration for the song.  “I was raised in Florida during segregation. There was this white family and my family, and we both had dogs. It didn’t make any sense to me that we kids couldn’t play together when all the dogs would just rip and run and get along fine.”

He later became involved in the Civil Rights movement and “was in the thick of organizing a student protest in Nashville when childhood memories inspired him to compose, with a friend, the music and lyrics for “Dog Dog.”

( I was unable to find a recent article in the St. Petersburg Times or Tampa Tribune that mentioned Dr. LaFayette as being from Tampa.   Of note is that he will be speaking at the Black Heritage Festival in Tampa on January 21, 2010.)

This song is known under several different titles and further confuse matters there are other songs with some of the same titles.

An excerpt of the song as performed by the Nashville Quartet can be found in Smithsonian Folkways Recordings “Sing For Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs”

I have not found the original lyrics as performed by Dr. LaFayette, but below are two versions.

DOG DOG (as performed by Sweet Honey In The Rock)

Dog Dog, Dig ogg,
A-digga dog dog,(repeat 4x)
If my dog loves your dog
And your dog loves my dog,
And my dog loves your dog,
And your dog loves my dog
Then why can’t we
Sit under the apple tree

This version is used in video above from the article

The Dog Song

As performed by Harry Belfonte on  Belafonte on Campus

That sounds like a rabbit-dog
I believe that’s a bird-dog
Oh that’s an old civil-rights chaser
Lord, Lord I know that’s a coon-dog

Talking ´bout a white dog
Talking ´bout a black dog
Talking ´bout a rabbit-dog
Talking ´bout a coon-dog
All them dogs, all them dogs
All them dogs Lordy, Lordy
All them dogs
Well why can’t we sit un’  the apple tree

You walk, walk with me
You talk, talk with me
Well why don’t you hold my hand and tell me
You understand now can’t you see
You and me oh yes
We’ll be so happy
Sit on the apple tree

My little doggy was a playing one day
Down in the meadow by a bundle of hay
Another little doggy well he come along
Said let’s get together and eat this bone
Now why can’t we sit on the apple tree

My little doggy started jumping around
Said let’s take a trip to the heart of town
The other little doggy well he made a face
Said I don’t trust the members of the human race
Now why can’t we sit on the apple tree

My little doggy said he would go
Down a town to see what was so
He stayed all day till the sky got dark
Run at home and he started to bark
Well why can’t we sit on the apple tree

He said you won’t believe the news I bring
I saw some march and I heard some sing
Some was a yelling and a throwing stones
Wherever I did see weren’t sharing any bones
Now why can’t we sit on the apple tree
My little doggy was a playing one day
Down in the meadow by a bundle of hay
Another little doggy well he come along
Said let’s get together and eat this bone
Now a why can’t we sit under the apple tree?

Every Friday,  Mutt Tunes showcases songs with or about dogs.  Email your suggestions.