West Virginia's Appalachian Music and Literature

Directions for the dance movements to "Cindy"

Steps needed to do the dance for "Cindy":

• Form two facing lines with partners across from one another.

• All steps done to the beat.

• Couple at the beginning of the line is the "head couple."

• Verse: All take four steps forward, four back, eight forward (exchanging places with their partner).

• Refrain: Head couple meets in the middle and does locked-elbow swing for eight beats, then joins both hands and sashays (side gallops) down to the foot of the set, creating a new head couple.

Now try to do the dance.

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After you have learned the dance, sing along:

Verse
I wish I was an apple ahanging on a tree,
And ev'ry time my Cindy passed she'd take a bite of me!

Refrain
Get along home, Cindy, Cindy, get along home Cindy, Cindy,
Get along home, Cindy, Cindy, I'll marry you some day.

Verse
She told me that she loved me, she called me sugar plum,
She threw her arms around me and I thought my time had come.

Refrain

Verse
I wish I had a needle as fine as I could sew,
I'd sew that gal to my coattail, and down the road I'd go.

Refrain

See another version of this song in AppLit, as it appears in May Justus' story New Boy in School (1963).

The Digital Library of Appalachia also has many digital copies of recordings of "Cindy" from archives of Appalachian colleges.