American Cowboy Song · Grades 3–6
Git Along Little Dogies lyrics — all verses — and a complete teaching guide for grades 3–6. Do-based pentatonic, low sol, timri in 6/8, ABCB form, open 5ths accompaniment, and a direct connection to Aaron Copland's Billy the Kid. One of the most musically rich cowboy songs in the elementary library.
Full lyrics · all verses
The complete lyrics with context. Hand out the score or lyrics sheet to help students learn the words — there's real vocabulary here worth teaching.
Classical music connection
The accompaniment for Git Along Little Dogies uses open 5ths — the same harmonic device Aaron Copland used throughout his American ballets to evoke the feeling of wide open land. Before teaching the accompaniment, play the opening of Copland's Billy the Kid (Introduction: The Open Prairie) so students can hear how open 5ths create that vast, spacious sound.
Once they've heard it in Copland, they'll hear it in their own accompaniment differently. The connection between a traditional cowboy song and one of America's most celebrated concert works is immediate and surprising for students — and it opens a genuine conversation about how composers borrow from folk traditions.
Listening suggestion: Play just the opening 30–60 seconds of the Introduction. That's all you need to establish the open 5th sound before students begin learning the accompaniment.
About this song
Git Along Little Dogies is one of the most musically sophisticated songs in the upper elementary folk song repertoire. The melody is beautiful and singable — entirely do-based pentatonic — but the musical content goes well beyond the melody. The accompaniment is where the real teaching happens.
The accompaniment is in ABCB form, which students need to memorize before playing. The video demonstrates an effective preparation sequence — have students learn the form conceptually before they ever pick up mallets. Marking the score (numbering the "1, 2, 3" chords and circling every time the chord moves down) gives students a visual map of the form.
"The melody has a lot of movement and sounds beautiful with the open 5ths often used by Copland to evoke the feeling of the open land."
— Deborah Skydell Pasternack, The Singing ClassroomLow sol: The melody repeats the sol-do pattern frequently, and low sol is also often approached from the low la above it — making this one of the clearest songs for teaching low sol in a do pentatonic context at the upper elementary level.
Timri in 6/8: The dotted-eighth-sixteenth pattern appears in the context of 6/8 meter — a more sophisticated application of timri than students encounter in earlier grades. The 6/8 feel of the song (the natural lilt of "Whoopee ti-yi-yo") is worth pointing to explicitly.
Teaching the vocabulary: Hand out the score or lyrics sheet — there's real vocabulary worth teaching. Dogies, chuckwagon, cow-puncher — these words open a window into 19th-century American life that students find genuinely interesting.
Teaching guide
Before singing, briefly explain cattle driving — a cowboy's job was to deliver a herd of young cows to a ranch in Wyoming from another state along a well-worn trail. Hand out the score or lyrics to help students learn the words. The vocabulary (dogies, chuckwagon, cow-puncher) is worth explaining and students find it genuinely interesting.
Before teaching the accompaniment, play the opening 30–60 seconds of Copland's Billy the Kid — Introduction: The Open Prairie. Have students listen for the open 5ths — that wide, spacious, "prairie" sound. Tell them their accompaniment uses the same technique. The connection is immediate and memorable.
The accompaniment is ABCB form and can be difficult to remember unless students memorize it before picking up mallets. Have students mark the score: number the "1, 2, 3" chords and circle every time the chord moves down. This gives them a visual map of the form. The video demonstrates an effective preparation sequence that works particularly well with older grades.
Once the form is memorized, transfer to barred instruments. The open 5th voicings are straightforward to set up and sound immediately beautiful. Have students play the accompaniment while others sing — the combination of the pentatonic melody with the open 5th accompaniment is one of the most satisfying sounds upper elementary students can produce.
Once students know the song well, draw attention to the sol-do pattern that repeats frequently in the melody. Low sol also appears approached from the low la above it — two distinct approaches to the same pitch in one song. This makes Git Along Little Dogies one of the most comprehensive songs for teaching low sol at the upper elementary level.
Common questions
The song has two verses and a repeating chorus. Verse 1 describes a narrator watching a cow-puncher riding alone and singing. Verse 2 describes the spring cattle roundup — branding, loading the chuckwagon, and driving the herd onto the trail. The chorus — "Whoopee ti-yi-yo, git along little dogies / It's your misfortune and none of my own / You know that Wyoming will be your new home" — repeats after each verse. "Dogies" means young cows or calves.
Dogies (sometimes spelled "doggies" but pronounced "DOH-geez") are young cows or calves — specifically motherless calves on the cattle trail. The word was common cowboy vocabulary in the 19th-century American West. It's worth explaining to students before singing, along with other vocabulary from the song: cow-puncher (a cowboy), chuckwagon (the traveling cook's wagon that fed the cowboys on the trail), and "bob off their tails" (a now-discouraged ranching practice).
Aaron Copland's ballet Billy the Kid (1938) opens with "Introduction: The Open Prairie" — a passage built on open 5ths (two notes a fifth apart, with no third) that evokes the vast, spacious quality of the American West. The barred instrument accompaniment for Git Along Little Dogies uses the same technique. Playing the Copland opening before teaching the accompaniment gives students a direct, audible connection between a traditional cowboy song and one of America's most celebrated concert works — and shows how composers borrow from and build on folk traditions.
ABCB form means the accompaniment has four sections: A (first phrase), B (second phrase), C (contrasting phrase), and B again (second phrase repeated). It differs from the more common AABA or ABAB forms students may have encountered. The accompaniment can be difficult to remember without preparation — have students memorize the form before picking up mallets, using the score-marking technique (numbering chords and circling where the chord moves down) to create a visual map.
More American folk songs for upper elementary
Do-based pentatonic with longways set folk dance and barred instrument improvisation. Classic American folk song.
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See teaching guide →Partner stick tossing game for upper elementary. Fa, Re, anacrusis, ta-m-ti.
See teaching guide →The real problem
Every teacher knows this feeling. You find a song, try it on Monday, and something goes sideways — the kids don't engage, you're not sure how to introduce it, the lesson loses momentum. It's not that the song was wrong. You just didn't have a clear picture of how it actually goes.
That's what makes The Singing Classroom different. Every song in the library — including this one — has a full video of Deborah teaching it with real students. You don't have to guess how to introduce it, how to structure the activity, or how to handle the tricky moments. You watch it. Then you teach it.
150+ songs. Every one demonstrated. No more hoping it works — you already know it will.
Watch Deborah teach Git Along Little Dogies — the Copland listening connection, the ABCB form preparation, and the full barred instrument arrangement. Git Along Little Dogies is just one of 150+ songs in the complete Singing Classroom library — every one with Deborah’s full video demonstration, teaching guide, and animated game instructions.
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