Full text of "The American Songbag"

2]<OU 166782 >m
> a: - ^ 73

-eg

THE AMERICAN SONGBAG

By Carl Sandburg

Biography
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Poems

SMOKE AND STEEL

SLABS OF TIIK SUNBURNT WEST

CHICAGO POKMH

CORN HUSKERS

For Young People
ROOTABAC A STORI ES
KOOTAHAOA 1'KIEONS
THE I'EOl'LE, YKS

The

AMERICAN
SONGBAG

CARL SANDBURG

New York
HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY

roPvmoiiT, 1997, 11 Y

RAlK'OrHT, HH \CK AND COMIMVY, INO

This book is complete and unabridged.
If /r manufactured under wartime con-
dilions in conformity uilh all govern-
ment regulations controlling the UM- of
paper and other materials.

Dedicated

TO THOSE UNKNOWN SINGERS WHO MADE SONGS

OUT OF LOVE, FUN, GRIEF AND TO THOSE MANY

OTHER SINGERS WHO KEPT THOSE SONGS AS LIVING

THINGS OF THE HEART AND MIND OUT OF LOVE,

FUN, GRIEF

INTRODUCTION

The American Songbag is a ragbag of strips, stripes, and streaks of color from nearly all ends of
the earth. The melodies and verses presented here are from diverse regions, from varied human
characters and communities, and each is sung differently in different places.

The song history of America, when some day it gets written, will accomplish two things. It
will give the feel and atmosphere, the layout and lingo, of regions, of breeds of men, of customs and
slogans, in a manner and air not given in regular history, to be read and not sung. And besides,
such a history would require that the student sing his way through most of the chapters.

If and when such history is written it will help some on the point registered by a Yankee phi-
losopher that there are persons born and reared in this country who culturally have not yet come
over from Europe. The chronicle would include that quaint commentary from the Rio Grande,
"In Mexico nobody knows how to sing and everybody sings!" It would deal with minor inci-
dents, vivid and hilarious. For instance, musical Chicago a few years ago looked with keen interest
on a lawsuit. Two composers were each claiming to be the first and only music writer to score the
Livery Stable Blues. On the witness stand the plaintiff testified that one evening, long before jazz
had become either a vogue or an epidemic, his orchestra was playing in a cabaret, "and a lady
dancer started doing some fancy steps, and I picks up a cornet and lets go a few pony neighs at her.
The trombone come through with a few horse laughs. TUen the banjos, cowbells, and sax puts in
a lot of 'terplitations of their own. And that was the first time the Livery Stable Blues was played."

Thus musical history in America already has its traditions and controversies. The origin of
jazz is still in a fog of wordy disputation. The years to come will see plenty of argument on other
moot matters.

There is presented herein a collection of 280 songs, ballads, ditties, brought together from all
regions of America. The music includes not merely airs and melodies, but complete harmoniza-
tions or piano accompaniments. It is an All-American affair, marshaling the genius of thousands
of original singing Americans.

The book begins with a series of Dramas and Portraits, rich with the human diversity of the
United States. There are Tarnished Love Tales Told in Song, or Colonial and Revolutionary
Antiques; some of them have the feel of black walnut, of knickerbockers, silver shoe-buckles, and
the earliest colonial civilization. Out of the section of Pioneer Memories, one may sing with the
human waves that swept across the Alleghanies and settled the Middle West, later taking the
Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the west coast. That notable distinctive American institu-
tion, the black-face minstrel, stands forth in a separate section. There are groups of railroad,
hobo, work-gang, steamboat songs. Seven Mexican border songs give the breath of the people
above and below the Rio Grande. Tunes and verses are given from the camps of lumberjacks,
loggers, and shanty-boys. One section contains ballads chiefly from the southern mountains. One
called Kentucky Blazing Star has the largest assemblage of interesting Kentucky ballads and songs
that has been put between the covers of any book. Two powerful Great Lakes songs are given,
"Bigerlow" and "Red Iron Ore," either of which may yet rival the song of the Volga boatmen.
One section is titled Picnic and Hayrack Follies, Close Harmony, and Darn Fool Ditties. The
quaver of rare Irish lilts, emigrants to the States, is in The Ould Sod. A little series of exquisite
musical fragments, light as gossamer mist, are grouped under the title, Lovely People. The book
closes with a list of spirituals called The Road to Heaven.

Probably 100 pieces, strictly folk songs, have never been published; they have been gathered
by the compiler and his friends from coast to coast and from the Gulf to Canada. First of all,

vii

INTRODUCTION

this is a book of singable songs. It is for the library, but it belongs in the music corner of the library,
or on the piano, or on the back porch, or at the summer cottage, or at the camp, or wherever people
sing songs and want new songs to sing.

There is a human stir throughout the book with the heights and depths to be found in Shake-
speare. A wide human procession marches through these pages. The rich and the poor; robbers,
murderers, hangmen; fathers and wild boys; mothers with soft words for their babies; workmen on
railroads, steamboats, ships; wanderers and lovers of homes, tell what life has done to them. Love
and hate in many patterns and designs, heart cries of high and low pitch, are in these verses and
tunes. There are low-keyed lyrics, brief as the life of a rose; there are biographies of voyagers
that epitomize long novels and thick log-books.

This is precisely the sort of material out of which there may come the great native American
grand opera. It is so intensely and vitally American that some who have seen the book have sug-
gested that it should be collateral material with the study of history and geography in schools,
colleges, and universities; the pupils or students might &ing their answers at examination time.

"A big bandana bundle of bully ballads for big boys and their best girls," was the comment
of one who read the Table of Contents. Look at its program. Its human turmoil is terrific. Blas-
phemies from low life and blessings from high life for baritone or soprano are brought together.
Puppets wriggle from their yesterdays and testify. Curses, prayers, jigs and jokes, mix here out
of the blue mist of the past. It is a volume full of gargoyles and gnomes, a terribly tragic book
and one grinnirigly comic; each page lifts its own mask. It is as ancient as the medieval European
ballads brought to the Appalachian Mountains; it is as modern as skyscrapers, the Volstead Act,
and the latest oil-well gusher. Though meant to be sung, it can be read and is a glorious anthology
of the songs that men have sung in the making of America.

History, we may repeat, runs through this book. Yet it is first of all, we say again, a song-
book to be sung rather than read. Music and the human voice command this parade of melodies
and lyrics. They speak, murmur, cry, yell, laugh, pray; they take roles; they play parts; in topics,
scenes, and "props" they range into anthropology, houses, machines, ships, railroad trains, churches,
saloons, picnics, hayrack and steamboat parties, and human strugglers chanting farewell to the frail
frameworks of earthly glory. There is patter and jabber of vulgarity, there are falsetto mockers
and groaning blasphemies, there is moaning of prayers and tumult and shouting of faiths.

Honest workingmen and hardened criminals sing their lives; beloved vagabonds and miserable
miscreants are here; pretty babies and tired mothers, bad boys and anxious fathers, people who
are fat, rollicking and gay along with restless and desperate men and women; they stand forth
here and in bright ballads or melancholy melodies tell what life has done to them.

The American Songbag comes from the hearts and voices of thousands of men and women.
They made new songs, they changed old songs, they carried songs from place to place, they resur-
rected and kept alive dying and forgotten songs.

Ballad singers of centuries ago and mule-skinners alive and singing today helped make this
book. Pioneers, pick and shovel men, teamsters, mountaineers, and people often called ignorant
have their hands and voices in this book, along with minstrels, sophisticates, and trained musicians.
People of lonesome hills and valleys are joined with "the city slicker," in the panorama of its pages.

The American scene and pageant envisioned by one American singer and touched off in one
of his passages is measurably vocal here. "Forever alive, forever forward they go, they go, I
know not where they go, but I know that they go toward the best, toward something greato"

viii

PREFATORY NOTES

The airs and verses, tunes and words, on the pages herewith, are most of them intended to be
sung. A minor portion of them are enduring poems of lyric or narrative value; they are. worth
reading for the reading's sake, as one communes with books worth while. Yet even with such
poems there is an added lighting or tincture given them if the air is hummed or the poem sung
to an accompaniment.

A few of the ballads and ditties are too long to be sung, from the first to the last verse, more
than once a year. Only by singing, however, will some of the airs and verses open up their best
slants and glimpses. '

If you like a particular air and would rather sing it in a way you have found or developed your-
self, departing from the musical expressions indicated, making such changes as please you at any
given moment, you have full authority to do so. We quote an able singer's comment, "Many
a modern song the interpreter looks at with a shudder. Riddled with expression marks and even
breathing marks, hedged in with arbitrary directions, radiating polyglot colloquialisms, it looks
like a barbed-wire entanglement. Singer and accompanist smile at one another, study the song
as a whole, and sing it their own way."

Some of our songs are sublime; some are silly. Some tell of lovable eyes and hearts, others tell
of crimes learned of in grand opera or read about in daily newspapers or in the classics of liter-
ature. They deal with a panorama of events and people, substance and shadow, paunches and
fleshpots, as well as filaments of sunset mist. They have roles.

Often a song is a role. The singer acts a part. lie or she is a story-teller of a piece of action.
Characters or atmosphere are to be delivered. . . . No two artists deliver a role in the same way.
Yet all good artists study a song and live with it before performing it. ... There is something
authentic about any person's way of giving a song which has been known, lived with and loved,
for many years, by the singer.

Perhaps I should explain that for a number of years I have gone hither and yon over the United
States meeting audiences to whom I talked about poetry and art, read my verses, and closed a
program with a half- or quarter-hour of songs, giving verbal footnotes with each song. These
itineraries have included now about two-thirds of the state universities of the country, audiences
ranging from 3,000 people at the University of California to 30 at the Garret Club in Buffalo,
New York, and organizations us diverse as the Poetry Society of South Carolina and the Knife
and Fork Club of South Bend, Indiana. The songs I gave often reminded listeners of songs of a
kindred character they knew entirely or in fragments; or they would refer me to persons who had
similar ballads or ditties.

In the arranging of a song I would usually sing it for the composer and bring out my note-
book sketch, a rough affair rapidly penciled and as a document looking rather like a "shivaree"
than a quiet wedding. The composer and I usually collaborated on the main design or outline of
the harmonization or accompaniment. From then on the work was entirely that of the composer,
except in a number of instances when I suggested a different mood, atmosphere or rhythm to meet
the requirements of the song as I had customarily heard it. The words "arranger" (abbreviated
as Arr.) and "arrangement" are generally employed throughout the book. The musical setting
of a song is occasionally an elaborate and accomplished harmonization. Most often, however, the

PREFATORY NOTES

"arrangement" is a simple accompaniment. (If time and circumstance had permitted there would
have been included a number of guitar, accordion, and harmonica accompaniments for the port-
able instruments.)

Special acknowledgments are made to Alfred G. Wathall, to Thorvald Otterstrtfm, to Leo
Sowerby, and to Hazel Felman for musical settings, for counsel and guidance at points where their
technical skill and musical experience was requested.

Alfred G. Wathall wrote the major number of harmonizations; he had the gift of versatility
requisite for the treatment of such a varied character of songs. His moods of work and methods
of approach have a generous gamut. The ways of his heart and head range from the playboy
who pranks as he pleases, who follows the gleam of the whim of the moment whether he happens
to have the wishing heart of an innocent child or the tumultuous thoughts of a stranger lost in the
solitude of the packed traffic on a big city street. More important yet, Wathall is the cunning
technician familiar with all the classics, exercising a gift of showmanship in behalf of a humanity
that he loves with laughter and tears. He knows what is verandah and what is ashcan in the realm
of music and can mingle them with effective contrast. His "Music Box" and "Arabian Nights"
creations for WGN, the Chicago Tribune radio station, for which he is the master arranger, have
had a remarkably widespread and enthusiastic audience. His "Sultan of Sulu" music was the work
of a nineteen-year-old genius. The touch of genius, too, goes for his forty-minute musical setting
of that trifling tale from Rootabaga Stories, a piece of puppetry called "The Romance of the Rag
Doll and the Brooin Handle"; as the announcer reads the story there are accompaniments and
interspersals of music from a chamber-music orchestra.

Leo Sowerby was twenty-one years old when a Chicago orchestra produced a concerto for
'cello by him entitled "The Irish Washerwoman." He took a favorite folk piece of American
country fiddlers, a famous tune of the pioneers, and made an interesting experiment and a daring
adventure with it. He was a bandmaster during the World War. Then later he is found doing a
happy-go-lucky arrangement for Paul Whiteman's orchestra; it may be an exploit in "jazz" or pos-
sibly a construction in "the new music." One definite thing about Sowerby is his ownership of
himself, his acceptance of hazards. He is as ready for pioneering and for originality as the new
century of which he is a part. One other definite thing is that he does not prize seclusion to the
point where he is out of touch with the People. Not "the peepul" of the politicians, nor the cus-
tomers of Tin Pan Alley, but rather The Folks, the common human stream that has counted im-
mensely in the history of music. We reckon it a privilege that Sowerby could undertake the musical
settings for sixteen of our songs.

Thorvald Otterstrorn is a compound of toil, technical knowledge, and genius. I cannot enu-
merate nor set forth here anything like an outline of the ideas and projects that animate him. He
is encyclopedic in scope of knowledge. I cannot mention nor discuss intelligently one of his manu-
scripts, a scientific treatise of technical phases of music; his writings have to be wrestled with and
are tough as mathematics. And his compositions of music have specimens that are yet to be written
about, both simply and intricately, as work that has come from a temperament of fire and a hand
possessive of master strokes.

Hazel Felman (Mrs. Jacob R. Buchbinder) has rare adaptability of mood and technic, has ver-
satility, and has ranged widely as evidenced in her song air and musical setting of Rudyard Kipling's
"Boots/* made known to a wide audience through the singing of Reinald Werrenrath, and later

PREFATORY NOTES

a fantastic "March of the Zizzies," based on a breed of small people who make all things zigzag,
as told in the affidavits of Rootabaga Stories. She is adaptive, pictorial, imaginative.

We could write a considerable little book about the ways of our composers, the contralto of
Elizabeth Carpenter Marshall crooning her airs to the verses of Dorothy K. Aldis; she is as obedient
to her inner voices as her uncle, John Alden Carpenter. We could mention the unmistakable genius
of Henry Joslyn and the fighting stride of some of his cacophonic speculations as played by Sto-
kowski's orchestra on the one hand and Whiteman's on the other.

The versatile Rupert Hughes, writer of novels and short stories, director of photoplays, biog-
rapher of musicians, biographer of George Washington, and author of remarkably free and inde-
pendent essays and inquiries into human credulity, is a composer of music which the house of
Sch inner has published. The latter folios include airs and musical settings of three pieces from
Chicago Poems and Cornhnskers. It was natural when I met Hughes in his Southern California
home that I should show him the Mexican songs that needed harmonizations for our fiesta.

R. W. Gordon placed at our disposal the resources of his immense collection of old songs that
men have sung. His fellowship at Harvard University, his editorship of the Adventure Magazine
department, "Old Songs That Men Have Sung," and his extended series of articles on American
folk songs in the New York Times, resulted in his being in touch with a force of contributors and
correspondents numbered at upwards of 2,700. His travels from coast to coast, his meanderings
in a motor car through the southern states, always seeking old songs or characteristic and sig-
nificant songs, brought about a collection that is without doubt the largest assemblage of folk-
song material ever gathered by any one person. On close acquaintance with the thorough char-
acter of his service, his intense devotion and anxious concentration in one chosen area of effort,
the extent of the data gathered, one realizes that Gordon's work is monumental.

Harry M. Gilbert, half a New Yorker and half a Paducah KenLuckian, was an adviser on points
in music, texts, and general drift of the book. Besides his classical training, his musical association
with Jess Ricks, the Long Island fiddler, was of advantage in scrutiny of folk songs. Alfred Frank-
enstein, author of the book Syncopating Saxophones and other kit-kats in musical criticism, was an
interested counselor from the start.

Alexander Hannah of Pasadena, California, Oliver R. Barrett of Chicago, William II. Richard-
son of Jersey City, New Jersey, and Dr. Ernest Horn of the College of Education of the University
of Iowa, gave the use of scarce books on old minstrel and pioneer songs.

Our illustrations are chiefly from songsters and broadsides of 1840 and 1850. A few are from
the Family Magazine and Harper's New Monthly Magazine of that period. William Gropper is
the contributor of four or five skits pertinent to his style and modernist viewpoint. Hans Stengel
furnished the silhouette of the author singing and driving a one-horse milk wagon. Diego Rivera
of Mexican Folkways did the line drawing with his initials on it.

Thanks are due that sterling Brooklyn citizen, W. W. Delaney, who for twenty-two years
published twice a year a ten-cent sorigbook containing the words of about 160 songs in each number.
He looked and spoke as the friendliest of men, rich with memories of popular songs, song writers,
"pluggers" and publishers. His advice to me, as I wrote it in a note-book riding the subway, was:
"You got to get it through your nut there's only a limited amount of people know how to sing
those old songs. Take those songs of fifty years ago who knows how to sing them? who cares
about them? The people you're catering to have never heard of them. That's a point you've got
to look to."

PREFATORY NOTES
DIALECT

Dialects in the United States are many and various. The southern states have several; the
daily speech and the common idioms of South Carolina, Alabama, and Texas, have differences.
The lingo of mountaineers is not the same in all Appalachian regions. The cowboy and the sheep-
herder are as far apart in ways of talk as a Chicago newsboy and a Santa Fe brakeman running
out of Albuquerque. In putting dialects into print, an author has to consider how it may help
those who are to read or sing it. If you know a dialect and have heard it from living people you
will not need much help from the butcheries of words, the cleavages, elisions, and apostrophes
required for an accurate phonetic record. And those who have not heard a certain dialed;, who
must get acquainted with it and learn to pronounce it from the printed page, may stumble on
difficulties. The word "the" in different cases, according to the way it is spoken, would be indi-
cated as (1) the, (2) de, (3) thuh, (4) th', (5) t', (6) d', (7) duh. Or the word "here" would be
indicated as (1) here, (2) hyer, (3) hyeah, (4) hyar, (5) hyah, (6) yere, (7) hceyah. Four kinds
of the word "the" are in the negro sentence, "7" fust ting he knowed thuh p'lice had him an* de
wagon come aroun* duh cornah." Three kinds of the word "here" are in the mountaineer sen-
tence, "Ilyeah comes dis yere Bill Brown up dat hyar road." Following are two ways of writing
a verse of a South Carolina spiritual, one in dialect, the other not:

Stab in de eas', stall in de wes', Star in the east, star in the west,

Wish dat stah wuz in mail breas', Wish that star was in my breast,

Chu'eh Ah know yuh gonna miss me w'en Ahm gawn. Church, I know you're going to miss me when I'm

Wen Ahm gawn, gawn, gawn, gone.

W'en Ahm gawn to come no mo', When I'm gone, gone, gone,

Chu'ch, Ah know ynh gonna miss me w'en Ahm gawn. When I'm gone to come no more,

Church, I know you're going to miss me when I'm
gone.

AN AMERICAN BOOKSIIKLF OF SONG

An interesting list of books to go on an American Bookshelf of Song could be named. It would
include such volumes in recent years as Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (Macmillan &
Co.), by John A. Lomax; American Songs and Ballads (Charles Scribner's Sons), by Louise A.
Pound; American-English Folk-Songs Collected in the Southern Appalachians (G. Schirrner), by Cecil
J. Sharp; Folk-Songs of the South (Harvard University Press,) edited by John Harrington Cox;
Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy (Harvard University Press), by Franz Rickaby; On the Trail ,
of Negro Folk Songs (Harvard University Press, by Dorothy Scarborough; The Flying Cloud, pub-
lished by the compiler, M. C. Dean, Virginia, Minnesota; Frontier Ballads: Songs from Lawless
Lands (Doubleday, Page & Co.), by Charles J. Finger; The Book of Navy Songs (Doubleday, Page
& Co.), collected by The Trident Literary Society of the United States Naval Academy and arranged
by Joseph W. Crosley; Singing Soldiers (Scribner's), by John J. Niles; Negro Workaday Songs (Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press), by Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson; Mellows: Work Songs,
Street Cries, and Spirituals (A. & C. Boni), by R. Emmet Kennedy; Roll and Go: Songs of American
Sailormen (The Bobbs-Merrill Company), by Joanna Colcord; The Land of Poco Tiempo (Scrib-
ner's), by Charles Luminis; Blues (A. & C. Boni), by W. C. Handy, with introduction by Abbe
Niles; Texas and Southwestern Love (Number VI of Publications of the Texas Folk Lore Society),
edited by J. Frank Dobie.

xii

PREFATORY NOTES

Files of the Journal of the American Folk Lore Society, and such freshly original publications
as those of the Texas Folk Lore Society, contain considerable folk-song material, much of it price-
less. Besides her volume, The American Indians and Their Music (The Womans Press), Frances
Densmore has presented a superb array of studies of the Red Man as a singer in her volumes pub-
lished by the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution; the songs in this field require an ex-
ceptional practice and technic. The literature on the negro spiritual and its songbooks has steadily
grown and is well itemized in The Negro Year Book. For a gallantly bantering treatment of Amer-
ican song during the past century and a half, with merriment over the changing fads, fashions,
foibles, and formulas of commercialized song, Sigmund Spaeth's volume, Read 9 Em and Weep
(Doubleday, Page & Co.)> is worth having.

TOO LATE TO CLASSIFY

While our book was nearly ready for press, and prefatory notes about finished, I rambled
through 1,300 pages of The Unirersal Songster, published in London 1826-28, and found there a
piece which should have been included in our folio of songs known among the Lincolns and Hankses.
Dennis Hanks, a cousin of Abraham Lincoln, when queried by W. H. Herndon as to what songs
were known to their families in southern Indiana in the 18 c 20's, mentioned one about "The tur-
ban'd Turk, who scorns the world and struts about with his whiskers curled." The first time I
met the words of this song was in the above-named book, where its title and text appear as follows:

None Can Love Like an Irishman
(Collins)

The turban'd Turk, who scorns the world,
May strut about with his whiskers curled,
Keep a hundred wives under lock arid key,
For nobody else but himself to see;
Yet long may he pray with his Alcoran
Before he can love like an Irishman.

The gay Monsieur, a slave no more,
The solemn Don, the soft Signor,
The Dutch Mynheer, so full of pride,
The Russian, Prussian, Swede beside
They all may do whatever they can,
But they'll never love like an Irishman.

The London folks themselves beguile,
And think they please in a capital style;
Yet let them ask, as they cross the street,
Of any young virgin they happen to meet,
And I know she'll say, from behind her fan,
That there's none can love like an Irishman.

By what ways this ditty, or lines of it, traveled to southern Indiana and was popular in corn-
fields and at cross-roads, we may leave to later investigation. It is evidence that metropolitan
songs may take long migrations.

Also we add here another verse of the song "I Met Her in the Garden Where the Praties Grow"
in the folio The Quid Sod. It goes

xiii

PREFATORY NOTES

And now that we arc married

And we're blessed with children three,
Two girls just like their mother

And the boy the image of me
We'll raise them up so neatly

In the way they ought to go
So they'll not forget the garden

Where the praties grow.

Strictly, we have a book that is unfinished, that has oddments and remainders, that has tatters
and remnants, elsewhere and far away in many ports and valleys.

XIV

DATA CONCERNING THE COMPOSERS AND WRITERS OF MUSICAL
SETTINGS, HARMONIZATIONS, AND ACCOMPANIMENTS

COLLINS, EDWARD Pianist, composer, Chicago.
Born, Joliet, 111. Studied piano with a sister, later
with Rudolph Ganz. Studied composition under En-
gelhert Humpcrdinck and others at Royal Academy,
Berlin. Toured the United States with Ernestine
Schumann-Heink, 1912-13. Assistant conductor,
Century Opera Company, New York, 1913-14;
Wagner festival, Bayreuth, 1914. Has appeared as
piano soloist and guest conductor with Chicago and
St. Louis Symphony Orchestras. Has composed
many works for piano and for orchestra. Member of
faculty, Chicago Musical College.

CRAWFORD, RUTH PORTER Composer, Chicago.
Born, East Liverpool, Ohio. Studied pinuo under
Vallborg Collett, Jacksonville, Fla., Bertha Foster,
Miami, Louise Robyn and Djane Lavoie-Herz, Chi-
cago. Studied theory under Adolph Weidig, Chicago.
Member of faculty, American Conservatory, Chicago.
Composer of violin sonata, suite for small orchestra,
suite for wind instruments and piano, "Tom Thumb'*
suite for piano solo, songs, preludes for piano. Mem-
ber, board of directors, Pro Musica Society, Chicago,
non-resident advisory board, New Music Society of
California, Sigma Alpha Iota.

EDSON, CHARLES FARWELL Bass, Chicago. Born,
San Francisco. Studied under Frederick Buck, Ella
G. Richards, L. G. Gottschalk, and others. D6but,
Los Angeles, with Los Angeles opera. Sang with
Ferris Ilartman Opera Company. Conducts private
vocal studio in Chicago. Has also appeared as .actor.
Composer of songs. Member, Gamut Club, Los
Angeles, Society of Amerieau Musicians.

FAWWELL, ARTHUR Composer. Born, St. Paul,
Minn. Studied engineering at Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology. Studied music under Homer
Norris in Boston, Eiigelbert Humperdinek and Hans
Pfitzner, in Germany, and Alexandre Guilmant in
Paris. Member of faculty, Cornell University, 1899-
1901. Established Wa-Wan Press, publishing native
American works, 1901, continuing publication to 1908.
Correspondent, Musical America, 1909-15. Has
taught at Settlement Music School, New York, and
at University of California. Has made extensive
studies of American folk music. Composer of many
works on folk themes American Indian Melodies,
Folk Songs of West and Sonth, From Mesa and J*lain,
etc., all for piano solo, and music for pageants and
plays. Founder and director, Theater of the Stars,
Big Bear Lake.

PELMAN, HAZEL (Mrs. J. R. Buchbinder) Com-
poser, Chicago. Born, Joliet, Illinois. Studied under
Thorvald Otterstrdm. Numerous songs, including set-
ting of Kipling's "Boots." Concerto for piano and
orchestra. "Legend" for violin and piano. "March
of the Zizzies." Residence, 1137 E. 50th St., Chicago,
Illinois.

GILBERT, HARRY M. Organist, pianist, New York.
Born, Paducah, Ky. Studied under Alberto Jon&s,
Hans Pfitzner, Max Landow, and others, in New York
and Berlin. Organist and choir director, Fifth Avenue
Presbyterian Church, New York. Conductor, Society
of American Singers and Gilbert Singers. Director,
Evercady Hour. Has appeared as soloist on tour with
David Bispham, Maud Powell, Pablo Casals, Geral-
dine Farrar, and others. Composer of songs, piano
pieces, and church music.

GOODMAN, LILLIAN ROSEDALE (Mrs. Mark Good-
man) Born, Mitchell, S. D. Graduate Institute of
Musical Art, New York. Studied in Europe under
Buzzi-Peccia. Singer with Coit-Alber Chautauqua
bureau ; in duo program at French theater, New York;
under Shubert direction in Hello Alexander and lied
Pepper,- headliner in vaudeville concert program; com-
poser of many songs, including Cherie I Love You,
My Heart is Sad, Love's Like the Robin, Mammy's
Precious Pickaninny, I Found You, If I Could Look
Into Your Eyes. Head of musical booking bureau,
Capital Building, Chicago, 111.

JOSLYN, HENRY Composer, violinist, conductor,
New York City. Born, Elmira, New York. Sym-
phonic suite, "Native Moments," produced by Sto-
kowski and Philadelphia Orchestra; Ganz and St.
Louis Symphony Orchestra; Stock and Chicago
Symphony Orchestra; Nathaniel Finston and Sunday
Symphony Concerts, Chicago Theatre (premiere).
Symphonic silhouette, "American Sky Lines," pro-
duced by Paul Whiteman's orchestra, the composer
conducting. Other compositions : three symphonies-^
"War," "Pythagoras," "The Symphony of the Low-
Downs"; "Red White and Blues" Symphony (for
Paul Whiteman); symphonic odes "Eulogy," "Joy,"
"The Day of Days"; symphonic suites "The Seven
Ages of Man," "The Melting Pot," "Symphony
Miniature," "Mitchie-Gaunee," "Fairy Tales";
tone-poems "Down Wind," "Prairie," "Chicago";
concertos for piano, violin, 'cello, viola (for Louis
Bailly); string quartet in C Minor; string pieces
"Elation," "Once Upon a Time," "Tryst."

DATA CONCERNING THE COMPOSERS AND WRITERS OF MUSICAL SETTINGS

KENNEDY, R. EMMET Author, pianist. Born,
Gretna, Louisiana. Author of three books of sketches
with negro folk music: "Black Cameos," "Mellows,"
"Runes and Cadences;" and a novel, Gritny People.
In reply to certain queries, Mr. Kennedy makes free
to declare: "My voice is a cross between a tenor
cricket and a baritone lizard. Studied under myself
and God. Name of present and former managers:
R. Emmet Kennedy."

LYCHENHEIM, MARION Pianist, Chicago. Born,
Philadelphia. Studied under Mrs. Crosby Adams,
Max Kramm, Heniot Levy, Jan Chiapusso, Adolph
Weidig, and others. Debut, Chicago, 1915. Has ap-
peared as soloist and accompanist with Adolph
Weidig, Francis Macniillen, Lionel Tort is, Jacques
Gordon, Florence Macbeth, Willy Burmester, and
others. Composer of string quartet; trio for violin,
viola, and piano; fugues for piano, children's songs,
violin and violoncello pieces. Member, Musicians'
Club of Women, Lake View Musical Society, Musical
Guild, MacDowell Club.

MARSHALL, ELIZABETH CARPENTER (Mrs. Thomas
L. Marshall) Composer, Lake Forest, Illinois. Born,
Winnetka, Illinois. Studied under Horace Middleton,
Ralph Lawton, Adolph Weidig, Thorvald Otterstrom,
Marta Milinowski, and Luigi Gulli. Niece of John
Alden Carpenter. Compositions for violin, piano,
voice. Musical settings for Dorothy Aid is* children's
poems. Residence, 11 Scott St., Lake Forest, 111.

NEMKOVSKY, MOLLIE (Mrs. Ben Abramson)
Pianist, Chicago. Studied under Karl Reck/.eh.
Played in concert in Northwest States, Canada and
Alaska under direction of Dominion Concert Bureau.
Accompanist of her brother, Sol Nemkovsky, violinist,
in concerts.

OTTERSTROM, THORVALD Composer, pianist, Chi-
cago. Born, Copenhagen, Denmark. Studied under
Sofie Wenter, St. Petersburg, Russia. Devoted to
composition and theory. Orchestral compositions per-
formed by Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and
Copenhagen Symphony Orchestras. Violin and piano
sonata and 'cello piano sonata premieres in Chicago,
1913 and 1915. Piano solo compositions, 24 preludes
and fugues and 6 concert studies, played by numerous
artists in United States and Europe. Author of theo-
retical works. Residence, 1400 E. 59th St., Chicago,
Illinois.

PARKS, HENRY FRANCIS Organist, conductor,
Chicago. Born, Louisville, Ky. Studied under Leo

Sowerby, Karl Schmidt, Fisher Thompson, Ignacio
Lazcano, George Rogovoy, and others. Has played
and conducted at many theaters in the West and
Middle West. Conducted Buttc Symphony Orches-
tra, Buttc, Mont. Taught at MacPhail School, Min-
neapolis, and conducted Minneapolis Lyceum Sym-
phony Orchestra, 1924-25. Member of faculty,
Chicago Musical College; contributor to Band, Or-
chestra, Melody, and other periodicals. Author, The
Jazzology of Organ Playing; Tlie Modern Theater
Organ. Member, American Guild of Organists,
American Federation of Musicians.

SOWERBY, LEO Composer, Chicago. Born, Grand
Rapids, Mich., 1895. Studied piano under Calvin
Lampert, theory under Arthur Olaf Andersen, Amer-
ican Conservatory, Chicago. Bandmaster in United
States army, 1918-19; taught theory at American
Conservatory to 1921. Was first American composer
to win the Prix de Rome, 1921, and lived at American
Academy in Rome, 1921-23. At present, teacher of
theory, American Conservatory, Guhn School, Chi-
cago, and organist and choirmaster, St. James Epis-
copal Church, Chicago. Composer of symphony,
concertos for piano, for violin, and for violoncello,
arrangements of folk tunes for symphony orchestra,
symphonic poems, "King Estmere" for two pianos
and orchestra, and "Medieval Poem" for organ and
orchestra, many smaller works for string quartet, solo
instruments, organ, voice, and jazz orchestra.

WATHALL, ALFRED GEORGE Composer, violinist,
pianist, organist, conductor; Chicago, Illinois. Born,
Bulwell, near Nottingham, England. Came to Amer-
ica with parents in 1890. Studied under Franz Esser,
William Middelschulte, Peter Christian Lutkin; and
in London, England, under Sir Charles Villiers Stan-
ford arid Sir Frederick Bridge. At the age of twenty
lie composed the music for George Ade's musical
comedy, The Sultan of Sulu, which ran continuously
for seven seasons. Member of faculty, Northwestern
University School of Music, for ten years. Composed
and conducted cantata, "Alice Brand," Evanston,
1903. Other compositions include two operettas and
many songs. As master-arranger and composer for
WGN, the Chicago Tribune radio station, 1926 and
1927, put on the air original musical experiments such
as a Rhapsody for voices and orchestra, based on the
popular tune Valencia; and a setting of Sandburg's
Rootabaga story, "The Wedding of the Rag Doll and
the Broom Handle."

XVI

Apologia

I APOLOGIZE FOR THE IMPERFECTIONS IN THIS WORK. I BELIEVE
NO ONE ELSE IS NOW, Ott EVER WILL BE, SO DEEPLY AWARE AND
SO THOROUGHLY AND WIDELY CONSCIOUS OF THE IMPERFECTIONS
IN THESE PAGES. I SHOULD LIKE TO HAVE TAKEN TEN, TWENTY,
THIRTY YEARS MORE IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS VOLUME.

MANY CONSIDERATIONS WHICH HAVE GOVERNED THE SELEC-
TION OF MATERIAL, AND THE METHODS OF PRESENTATION, ARE
NOT WORTH SETTING FORTH IN A FOREWORD, DECLARATION, OR
ARGUMENT; THEY WOULD HAVE VALUE CHIEFLY AND ONLY TO
THOSE WHO ALREADY UNDERSTAND SOMEWHAT THE LABYRINTHS,
THE TWISTED PATHWAYS, AND ROADS OF LIFE, OUT OF WHICH
THIS BOOK ISSUES.

THE BOOK WAS BEGUN IN DEPTHS OF HUMILITY, AND ENDED
LIKEWISE WITH THE MURMUR, **GOD BE MERCIFUL TO ME, A
SINNER/' IT IS A BOOK FOR SINNERS, AND FOR LOVERS OF HUMAN-
ITY. I APOLOGIZE TO THEM FOR THE SINS. OF THE BOOK AND THAT
IT LOVES MUCH BUT NOT ENOUGH.

CARL SANDBURG.

Chicago, 1927

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DRAMAS AND PORTRAITS

HE'S GONE AWAY 3
BOLL WEEVIL SONG 8

MOANISH LADY! 11

I RIDE AN OLD PAINT 12
FOGGY, FOGGY DEW 14

WAILLIE, WAILLIE! 16

DIS MORNIN', DIS EVENIN', so SOON 18

OH, BURY ME NOT ON THE LONE PRAIRIE 20

CARELESS LOVE 21

THE JOHN B. SAILS 22

JOHN HENRY 24

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL 26

ALICE B. 28

PO' BOY 30

THE OULD SOD

AS i WAS WALKIN' DOWN WEXFORD STREET 35

SH-TA-RA-DAII-DEY (iRISH LULLABY) 36

SHE SAID THE SAME TO ME 38

WHO'S THE PRETTY GIRL MILKIN' THE COW? 40

GIVE ME THREE GRAINS OF CORN, MOTHER 41

KEVIN BARRY 42

THE SON OF A GAMBOLIER 44

MINSTREL SONGS

I WISH I WAS SINGLE AGAIN 47
WALKY-TALKY JENNY 48
HAYSEED 50
GOOD-BY LIZA JANE 51
WIZARD OIL 52

TARNISHED LOVE TALES OR COLONIAL
AND REVOLUTIONARY ANTIQUES

BARBRA ALLEN 57
THE FROZEN GIRL 58
PRETTY POLLY 60
COMMON BILL 62
LITTLE SCOTCII-EE 64
THE HOUSE CARPENTER 66
A PRETTY FAIR MAID 68

LORD LOVEL 70

THE QUAKER'S WOOING 71

THE MAID FREED FROM THE GALLOWS 72

FRANKIE AND HER MAN

FRANKIE AND ALBERT 75
FRANKIE AND JOHNNY 78
FRANKIE BLUES 82
JOSIE 84
SADIE 86

PIONEER MEMORIES

THE LITTLE OLD SOD SHANTY 89

WHERE O WHERE IS OLD ELIJAH? 92

TURKEY IN THE STRAW 94

WHO WILL SHOE YOUR PRPJTTY LITTLE FOOT? 98

THE TRUE LOVER'S FAREWELL 98

FAIR ANNIE OF LOCIIYRAN 99

TEN THOUSAND MILES AWAY 100

OLD GRAY MARE 102

THE DRUNKARD'S DOOM 104

WHAT WAS YOUR NAME IN THE STATES? 106

SWEET BETSY FROM PIKE 107
CALIFORNIA 110

THE BANKS OF SACRAMENTO 112
MONEY 112

THE MONKEY'S WEDDING 113
ROSIE NELL 1 14
CHICKEN REEL 116

HANGING OUT THE LINEN CLOTHES 117
DOWN, DOWN DERRY DOWN 118
THE LANE COUNTY BACHELOR 120

KENTUCKY BLAZING STAR

SOUR WOOD MOUNTAIN 125
THE LOVER'S LAMENT 126
HELLO, GIRLS 128
KANSAS BOYS 129
RED RIVER VALLEY 130
LIZA JANE 1 32
MOUNTAIN TOP 133

XIX

TABLE OF CONTENTS

NEGRO REEL 134

ONE MORNING IN MAY 136

THE TROUBLED SOLDIER 137

POST-RAIL SONG 138

HAMMER MAN 139

LOVE SOMEBODY, YES I DO 140

AIN'T GONNA RAIN 141

KENTUCKY MOONSHINER 142

MISTER FROG WENT A-COURTING 143

KIND MISS 144

COIN* DOWN TO TOWN 145

THE SHIP THAT NEVER RETURNED 146

DOWN IN TH'K VALLEY 148

I DREAMED LAST NIGHT OF MY TRUE LOVE

DRIVIN' STEEL 150

THE LINCOLNS AND HANKSES

THE MISSOURI HARMONY 152
WINDSOR 153
GREENFIELDS 154
WORTHINGTON 154
HIGHBRIDGE 155
LEGACY 155

THE BROWN GIRL OR FAIR ELEANOR 156
HEY BETTY MARTIN 158
OLD BRASS WAGON 159
CUCKOO WALTZ 160
WEEVILY WHEAT 161
EL-A-NOY 162
HOOSEN JOHNNY 164
MY PRETTY LITTLE PINK 166
LINCOLN AND LIBERTY 167

OLD ABE LINCOLN CAME OUT OF THE WILDER-
NESS 168

GREAT LAKES AND ERIE CANAL

THE ERIE CANAL 171
BIGERLOW 174
RED IRON ORE 176
RAGING CANAWL 178
THE E-RI-E 180

HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM! 184

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP, KEEP ON A-TRAMPING

186
THE DYING HOGOER 186

WANDERIN* 188

A. R. IT. 190

WE ARE FOUR BUMS 192

THE BIG BRUTAL CITY

THE POOR WORKING GIRL 195

ROLL THE CHARIOT 196

BRADY 198

ON TO THE MORGUE 199

IT'S THE SYME THE WHOLE WORLD OVER 200

IN THE DAYS OF OLD RAMESES 202

THE GOOD BOY 203

WILLY THE WEEPER 204

COCAINE LIL 206

SHE PROMISED SHE*D MEET ME 207

NO MORE BOOZE (FIREMAN SAVE MY CHILD) 208

LYDIA PINKIIAM 210

PRISON AND JAIL SONGS

BIRD IN A CAGE 213

YONDER COMES THE HIGH SHERIFF 213

PORTLAND COUNTY JAIL 214

MOONLIGHT 216

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (2) 217

SEVEN LONG YEARS IN STATE PRISON 218

WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND FOOLISH 219

BEEN IN THE PEN SO LONG 220

THE PREACHER AND THE SLAVE

HOBO SONGS

SHOVELLIN' IRON ORE

183

BLUES, MELLOWS, BALLETS

LEVEE MOAN 225

THOSE GAMBLER'S BLUES 228

GOT DEM BLUES 232

DE BLUES AIN' NOTHIN* 234
WHEN A WOMAN BLUE 236

coo-coo (PEACOCK SONG) 237

GREAT GAWD, I'M FEELIN* BAD

O MY HONEY, TAKE ME BACK 239

WHAT KIN* O* PANTS DOES THE GAMBLER

WEAR? 240
JOE TURNER $41

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TIMES GETTIN' HARD, BOYS

I'M SAD AND I'M LONELY
C. C. RIDER 246
YOU FIGHT ON 248

SATAN'S A LIAH 250

BALLET OF DE BOLL WEEVIL 252

DE TITANIC

THE GREAT OPEN SPACES

WHEN THE CURTAINS OF NIGHT ARE PINNED

BACK 259

WHEN THE WORK'S ALL DONE THIS FALL 260
AS I WALKED OUT IN THE STREETS OF LAREDO

263

THE DREARY BLACK HILLS 264
THE LONE STAR TRAIL 266
WHOOPEE TI YI YO, GIT ALONG LITTLE DO-

GIES 268

THE BUFFALO SKINNERS 270
POOR LONESOME COWBOY 273
THE TENDERFOOT 274
LITTLE All SID 276
THE KINKAIDERS 278
DAKOTA LAND 280
THE FARMER 282
RABBLE SOLDIER 284
THE TRAIL TO MEXICO 285

MEXICAN BORDER SONGS

LA CUCARACHA (MEXICAN COCKROACH SONG)

289

MANANITAS (DE JALISCO) 292

LO QUE DIGO 294

EL ABANDONADO 295

CIELITO LINDO 298

ADELITA 300

VERSOS DE MONTALGO 302

SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS

WAY UP ON CLINCH MOUNTAIN 307

LIZA IN THE SUMMER TIME (SHE DIED ON THE

TRAIN) 308

COON CAN (POOR BOY) 310
GYPSY DAVY 311

THE ROVING GAMBLER 312

YONDER COMES MY PRETTY LITTLE GIRL 313

THE GAMBOLING MAN 313

BURY ME BENEATH THE WILLOW 314
MAG'S SONG 316

THE ORPHAN GIRL OR NO BREAD FOR THE POOR

319

1 GOT A GAL AT THE HEAD OF THE HOLLER 320
LONESOME ROAD 322

FOND AFFECTION 323

GO BRING ME BACK MY BLUE-EYED BOY 324

LONDON CITY 324

THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN 325

I DON'T LIKE NO RAILROAD MAN 326

PICNIC AND HAYRACK FOLLIES, CLOSE
HARMONY, AND DARN FOOL
DUTIES

SUCKING CIDER THROUGH A STRAW 329

DID YOU EVER, EVER, EVER? 329

I WAS BORN ALMOST TEN THOUSAND YEARS

AGO 330

GO GET THE AX 332
ABA LONE 333
IN DE VINTER TIME 334
CIGARETTES WILL SPOIL YER LIFE 335
MARY HAD A WILLIAM GOAT 336
I WISH I WAS A LITTLE BIRD 338
OLD ADAM 339
THE HORSE NAMED BILL 340
CRAZY SONG TO THE AIR OF "DIXIE" 342
A BOY HE HAD AN AUGER 343
ABDUL, THE BULBUL AMEER 344
GREENS 347
ANIMAL FAIR 348
CALLIOPE 349
SI HUBBARD 350

RAILROAD AND WORK GANGS

BOLSUM BROWN 355

POOR PADDY WORKS ON THE RAILWAY 356

THE RAILROAD CARS ARE COMING 358

JERRY, GO AN* ILE THAT CAR 360

IF I DIE A RAILROAD MAN 362

XXI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CAP'N i BELIEVE 3G3

JAY GOULD'S DAUGHTER AND ON THE CHAHL1E

so IX) NO 364

CASEY JONES 36 6

MAMA HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS? 368

DON' LET YO' WATCH RUN DOWN 370

THERE'S MANY A MAN KILLED ON THE RAIL-
ROAD 371

SHE'LL BE COMIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN 372

I WENT DOWN TO THE DEPOT 374

EVER SINCE UNCLE JOHN HENRY BEEN DEAD
376

GO 'WAY F'OM MAII WINDOW 377

MY LULU 378

THE WIND IT BLEW UP THE RAILROAD TRACK

379

HOG-EYE 380

MY SISTER SHE WORKS IN A LAUNDRY 381
I FOUND A HORSE SHOE 382
RAILROAD HILL 384
HANGMAN 385
TIMBER 386

LUMBERJACKS, LOGGERS, SHANTY-
BOYS

JAMES WHALAND 389

THE SHANTY-MAN'S LIFE 390

FLAT RIVER GIRL 392

THE JAM ON GERRY'S ROCK 394

DRIVING SAW-LOGS ON THE PLOVER 396

MORRISSEY AND THE RUSSIAN SAILOR 398

MULE SKINNER'S SONG 400

SAILORMAN

WHISKY JOHNNY 403

BLOW THE MAN DOWN 404

THE DEAD HORSE 406

HEAVE AWAY 407

THE WIDE MIZZOURA 408

I CATCII-A DA PLENTY OF FEESH 409

THE HOG-EYE MAN 410

LEAVE HER, BULLIES, LEAVE HER

ACROSS THE WESTERN OCEAN

BANDIT BIOGRAPHIES

JIM F1SK 416
JESSE JAMES 4%0
SAM BASS 422

FIVE WARS

THE HUNTERS OF KENTUCKY OR HALF HORSE

AND HALF ALLIGATOR 4%7
JACKSON 430
POOR KITTY POPCORN 431
THERE WAS AN OLD SOLDIER 432
A FILIPINO IIOMBRE 434

THE SERGEANT, HE IS THE WORST OF ALL 435
WRAP ME UP IN MY TARPAULIN JACKET AND

THE HANDSOME YOUNG AIRMAN 436
A WAR BIRD'S BURLESQUE 438
H1NKY DINKY, PARLEE-VOO 44
WHERE THEY WERE 442
THE HEARSE SONG 444

LOVELY PEOPLE

MAN GOIN' ROUN' 447

ALL NIGHT LONG 448

ZEK'L WEEP 449

I KNOW MOONLIGHT 451

BLIND MAN LAY BESIDE THE WAY 452

BY'M BY 453

GO TO SLEEPY 4&4

JUNGLE MAMMY SONG 455

TEN THOUSAND MILES AWAY FROM HOME 456
MY OLD HAMMAII 457
CHAHCOAL MAN 4^9
THE WEAVER 460
THE COLORADO TRAIL 462

I MET HER IN THE GARDEN WHERE THE PRA-
TIES GROW 463
SOMEBODY 464

I DON'T WANT TO BE A GAMBLER 465
WHEN POOR MARY CAME WANDERING HOME 466

ROAD TO HEAVEN

JESUS, WON'T YOU COME B'M-BY? 469
DESE BONES GWINE TO RISE AGAIN

XXH

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TWO WHITE HORSES 472 THINGS I USED TO DO 482

WAY OVER IN THE NEW BURYIN* GROUN* 473 IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE 483

MARY WORE THREE LINKS OF CHAIN 474 STANDIN* ON THE WALLS OF ZION 484

PHARAOH'S ARMY GOT DROWNDED 476 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 485

GOOD-BYE, BROTHER 477 YOU GOT TO CROSS IT FOH YOHSELF 486

GOD'S GOIN' TO SET THIS WORLD ON FIRE 478 i GOT A LETTER FROM JESUS 487

AIN' GOV TO STUDY WAR NO MO* 480 EZEKIEL, YOU AND ME 488

INDEX 493

xxin

DRAMAS AND PORTRAITS

HE S GONE AWAY

BOLL WEEVIL SONG

MOANISII LADY!

I RIDE AN OLD PAINT

FOGGY, FOGGY DEW

WAILLIE, WAILLIE!

DIS MORNIN', DIS EVENIN', so SOON .

OH, BURY ME NOT ON THE LONE PRAIRIE

CARELESS LOVE

THE JOHN B. SAILS

JOHN HENRY

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

ALICE B

PO' BOY

HARMONIZATION BY PAGE

Leo Sowerby 3

Hazel Felman .... 8

Henry Francis Parks . . . 11

Hazel Felman . . . . 12

Henry Joslyn .... 14

Henry Joslyn .... 16

Hazel Felman . . . . 18

Hazel Felman .... 20

Alfred G. Wathall .... 21

Alfred G. Wathall .... 22

Thorvald Otterstrom ... 24

Henry Joslyn 2(5

Alfred G. Wathall .... 28

Lillian Rosedale Goodman . . 30

The world grows more majestic but man diminishes. Why is this? We carry within us greater
things than the Greeks, but we ourselves are smaller. It is a strange result. . . . The whole secret
of remaining young in spite of years, and even of gray hairs, is to cherish enthusiasm in one's self
by poetry, by contemplation, by charity. . . . The modern haunters of Parnassus carve urns of
agate and of onyx; but inside the urns what is there? Ashes. Their work lacks feeling, seriousness,
sincerity, and pathos in a word, soul and moral life. I cannot bring myself to sympathize with
such a way of understanding poetry. The talent shown is astonishing, but stuff and matter are
wanting. It is an effort of the imagination to stand alone a substitute for everything else. We
find metaphors, rhymes, music, color, but not man, not humanity. Poetry of this factitious kind
may beguile one at twenty, but what can one make of it at fifty? It reminds me of Pergamos,
Alexandria, of all the epochs of decadence when beauty of form hid poverty of thought and exhaus-
tion of feeling. I strongly share the repugnance which this poetical school arouses in simple people.
It is as though it only cared to please the world-worn, the over-subtle, the corrupted, while it ignores
all normal healthy life, virtuous habits, pure affections, steady labor, honesty, and duty. It is
an affectation, and because it is an affectation the school is struck with sterility. The reader desires
in the poet something better than a juggler in rhyme, or a conjurer in verse; he looks to find in
him a painter of life, a being who thinks, loves, and has a conscience, who feels passion and repent-
ance. FREDERICK AMIEL.

HE'S GONE AWAY

This is an arrangement from a song heard by Charles Rockwood of Geneva, Illinois, during
a two-year residence in a mountain valley of North Carolina. It stages its own little drama and
characters. The mountain called Yandro was the high one of this valley. A "desrick," Mr.
Rockwood was told, is a word for our shack or shanty. The song is of British origin, marked with
mountaineer and southern negro influences. Other mountain places in the southern states have
their song about going away ten thousand miles; this one weaves in the exceptional theme of the
white doves flying from bough to bough and mating, "so why not me with mine?" Mr. Sowerby
was lighted with a rich enthusiasm about this song and has met its shaded tones with an accom-
paniment that travels in fine companionship with the singer.

Not too slow and not too strict An*. L. S.

I'm goin' a- way for to stay a lit - tie while, But I'm comin' back if I go

____ * _* * * * .* A_

^Spp^-- f-

ten thou-sand miles. .

fct*

Oh, who will tie your shoes? And who will glove your

gEfe^g

=g^al

hands? And who will kiss your ru - by lips when I am gone?

Oh, it's

HE'S GONE AWAY

~1 I

?~3

pap - py'll tie my shoes,

js[ k~

And mam -my '11 glove my hands,

And

you will kiss my ru - by lips when you come back ! .

Oh, he's

gone, he s gone a - way, Jbor to stay a lit - tie while;

^F=^-

i^te=e=Ur^M=

"T~.. I 5

I^tJIZ^:=EEl

But he*s coin-in* back if he goes ten thou-sand miles.

Look a - way, .

1" -- 1 1

HE'S GONE AWAY

. . look a - way

o - ver Yan - dro,

On Yan - dro's high hill,

where them white doves are

fly - in' From bough to bough and a - mat - in* with their mates, So why not me

if:^EE*~^??^^

with mine?

For he's gone, oh, he's gone a -way For to stay a lit - tie

retarding

f)f) in time

HE'S GONE AWAY

while, But he's com - in' back if he goes ten thou-sand miles. . I'll go

T=J- T?^

build me a des-rick on Yan-dro's high, hill, Where the wild beasts won't bother me

^^^^^fi^^^^^:^

nor hear my sad cry; For he's gone, he's gone a -way for to stay a lit -tie

-J -TC^j*^F.~~^~~^=^rjL ~\ ]- k | -rr_... _zpzr -rrzrrn

^3EgHg4^^fc^&z^^E^L-^^r4^p^y |j

while, But he's com-in' back tf he goes ten thou-sand miles.

is*

f>f>f> /TN

f=f=^g^F--=O:

HE'S GONE AWAY

I'm goin* away for to stay a little while,

But I'm comin' back if I go ten thousand miles.

Oh, who will tie your shoes?

And who will glove your hands?

And who will kiss your ruby lips when I am gone?

Oh, it's pappy '11 tie my shoes,

And mammy '11 glove my hands,

And you will kiss my ruby lips when you come back!

Oh, he's gone, he's gone away,

For to stay a little while;

But he's comin* back if he goes ten thousand miles.

Look away, look away, look away over Yandro,
On Yandro's high hill, where them white doves are flyin'
From bough to bough and a-matin' with their mates,
So why not me with mine?

For he's gone, oh he's gone away

For to stay a little while,

But he's comin' back if he goes ten thousand miles.

I'll go build me a desrick on Yandro \s high hill,
Where the wild beasts won't bother me nor hear my sad cry;
For he's gone, he's gone away for to stay a little while,
But he's comin' back if he goes ten thousand miles.

BOLL WEEVIL SONG

A boll weevil couple, arriving in a cotton field in the springtime, will have, by the end of summer,
more than twelve million descendants to carry on the family traditions. So it is estimated. They
are a species of creatures among whom there is no talk at all about " the first families." The billion
dollar devastations of this little eater of cotton crops are of America's traditions of tragedy. J.
Russell Smith, the geographer, says the economic loss caused by the boll weevil equals in amount
that of the four year war in the 'sixties. John Lomax first sang this for the present writer, and of
four different airs and sets of words the Lomax version is the most important; the other boll weevil
songs are worth printing, however, for artistic and scientific purposes. I have known this song
for eight years, since the year John Lomax and his family lived in Indian Hill, Illinois, and it never
loses its strange overtones, with its smiling commentary on the bug that baffles the wit of man, with
its whimsical point that while the boll weevil can make a home anywhere the negro, son of man,
hath not where to lay his head, and with its intimation, perhaps, that in our mortal life neither the
individual human creature, nor the big human family shall ever find a lasting home on the earth.
Elements, weather, crop gambling, fate, Lady Luck, flit in the backgrounds. It is a paradoxical
blend of moods: quickstep and dirge, hilarious defiance and bowed resignation.

Lively with overtones of pathos

Arr. II. F.

Oh,de boll wee- vil am a lit- tie black bug,Come from Mex-i- co, dey say, Come

all de way to Tex - as jus' a - look-in* foh a place to stay, Jus' a - look-in' f oh a

BOLL WEEVIL SONG

Last ending

home,.

jus' a - look - in' foh a home.

=3=

1 Oh, de boll weevil am a little black bug,

Come from Mexico, dey say,

Come all de way to Texas, jus' a-lookin' foh a place to stay,
Jus' a-lookin' foh a home, jus' a-lookin' foh a home.

2 De first time I seen de boll weevil,

He was a-settin' on de square.

De next time I seen de boll weevil, he had all of his family dere.
Jus' a-lookin' foh a home, jus' a-lookin' foh a home.

3 De farmer say to de weevil :

" What make yo' head so red?"

De weevil say to de farmer, *' It's a wondah I ain't dead,
A-lookin' foh a home, jus' a-lookin' foh a home."

4 De farmer take de boll weevil,

An' he put him in de hot san*.

De weevil say: " Dis is mighty hot, but I'll stan' it like a man,
Dis'll be my home, it'll be my home."

5 De fanner take de boll weevil,

An' he put him in a lump of ice;

De boll weevil say to de farmer: " Dis is mighty cool and nice,
It'll be my home, dis'll be my home."

6 De farmer take de boll weevil,

An' he put him in de fire.

De boll weevil say to de farmer: "Here I are, here I are,
Dis'll be my home, dis'll be my home."

BOLL WEEVIL SONG

7 De boll weevil say to de farmer:
" You better leave me alone;

I done eat all yo' cotton, now I'm goin' to start on yo' corn,
I'll have a home, I'll have a home."

8 De merchant got half de cotton,

De boll weevil got de res'.

Didn't leave de farmer's wife but one old cotton dress,
An' it's full of holes, it's full of holes.

9 De farmer say to de merchant:

" We's in an awful fix;

De boll weevil et all de cotton up an* lef ' us only sticks,
We's got no home, we's got no home."

10 De farmer say to de merchant :

" We ain't made but only one bale,

And befoh we'll give yo' dat one we'll fight and go to jail,
We'll have a home, we'll have a home."

11 De cap'n say to de missus:

" What d' you t'ink o' dat?

De boll weevil done make a nes' in my bes' Sunday hat,
Goin' to have a home, goin' to have a home."

12 An' if anybody should ax you

Who it was dat make dis song,

Jus' tell 'em 'twas a big buck niggah wid a paih o' blue duckin's on.
Am' got no home, ain' got no home.

MOANISH LADY I

This offshoot of the spiritual, "Mourner, You Shall be Free," has been widely known for many
years among barber shop harmonizers. The other stanzas of the barber shop version, however,
are so lackadaisical that they don't do justice to the stately cadence of that solemn promise that
when the good Lord shall call you home you shall be free. Any one requiring foolish verses for this
air can easily improvise as silly ones as have been left out here. The music is too superbly serious
to have cheap lines.

Arr. H. F. P.
Evangelically ^

Oh! there was a moanish la - dy Lived in a moan- ish land,She had a moanish daughter

1
-J*

Monotonously

| _ I fs -fe ft fe K ft I

r==rf3^=*^ : ?=E3==^3==$3r

* ^-= * Jt-

:ZJT

Could moan at the Lord's com-mand. Moanish la - dy

and you shall be

f^S

^=*T

IHH

f ree,Moanish lion - ey, and you shall be free When the good Lord shall call you home.

/T\

=3=3=

FRfc

Eb*r

I RIDE AN OLD PAINT

This arrangement is from a song made known by Margaret Larkin of Las Vegas, New Mexico,
who intones her own poems or sings cowboy and Mexican songs to a skilled guitar strumming,
and by Linn Riggs, poet and playwright, of Oklahoma in particular and the Southwest in general.
The song came to them at Santa Fe from a buckaroo who was last heard of as heading for the Border
with friends in both Tucson and El Paso. The song smells of saddle leather, sketches ponies and
landscapes, and varies in theme from a realistic presentation of the drab Bill Jones and his violent
wife to an ethereal prayer and a cry of phantom tone. There is rich poetry in the image of the
rider so loving a horse he begs when he dies his bones shall be tied to his horse and the two of them
sent wandering with their faces turned west.

Arr. H. F.

^JfS-iii -zpzz^=Tj 5 =j-q z =

j =: K ) ] r r^i

I ride an old Paint, I lead - an old Dan,

"fflniFl ^ \

I'm goin* toMon-tan* for to

. - ' - , 1

< --^ _ : ...fc3_ *- 4_,^ j^ J

^==& ~-^ ^ d

tr _4. s^r-s~ ^,-Si ..*< -~A-

* 3t: q& tjtfilB: j&

^ ^q

HSI* _ 1 r^^i J
tSr>-. -^-

1! J 1 II

(M\s f\ 1 -4 J -4 - 4- -f - J- -

-t' ^ 1 m H 1

si? T rti,i ^ - . - ^ _j , ^ ~j , m , , "*

-1 - - ^ 1 ^ t-j

tt 4 * 4 4 \ i

i | [ . . m | P^ |

-+ * -J- *

-* -^

1 k_ I

SL tf J Js r* K H I ,JH I I i ""

i i m ^ m i i ,

rtv * J ~p J P 1 r 1

J p , P 1

\^\) ^ ; J * ^ I _j ' V ^ ^ * J

J - J W J I ! !

throw the hool - i - an. They feed in the cou - lees, they wa - ter in the draw, Their

hr hn

^ if""' ^&: ||j" W

_J^- Jd. d

*: ^:

j . 1 . .

^(^.jf _ 1 _j __ J ^J

~^d 1 J

_i 1^1 i * _i j

^ i * i ^ i

J- -J * J- ^ *

A ^ ritard. in time

xjl_$ _^ 1 ^ | 1 ^

frbd p-4-44.- -1 F-^J

tails are all mat- ted, their backs are all raw. Ride a-round, lit- tie do - gies,Ride a -

1 _

& & sHt-

1 1

^-S ii * ~ \ r * fl* 1 i

^=*=*==F=P=*=^

I RIDE AN OLD PAINT

77-7-7

round them slow, For the fier - y and snuf - fy are a - rar - in' to go.

V"L' ' J

]

~-\

- a;

Ja^i * If i ,i*^O
ti C^l B^22" 'a*?
ft ^.^ IT i-* -=-*'

. __.. 1 , 1

@$u J i

J 1

r-J H

:^fl

1 I ride an old Paint, I lead an old Dan,

I'm goin' to Montan' for to throw the hoolian.
They feed in the coulees, they water in the draw,
Their tails are all matted, their backs are all raw.

Ride around, little dogies,

Ride around them slow,

For the fiery and snuffy are a-rarin' to go.

2 Old Bill Jones had two daughters and a song,
One went to Denver and the other went wrong.
His wife she died in a poolroom fight,

Still he sings from mornin' till night.

Ride around, little dogies,

Ride around them slow,

For the fiery and snuffy are a-rarin ' to go.

3 Oh, when I die, take my saddle from the wall,
Put it on my pony, lead him out of his stall.

Tie my bones to his back, turn our faces to the West,
And we'll ride the prairie that we love the best.

Ride around, little dogies,

Ride around them slow,

For the fiery and snuffy are a-rarin' to go.

FOGGY, FOGGY DEW

This arrangement is from a song rather widely known, which I heard first from Arthur
Sutherland and his bold buccaneers at the Eclectic Club of Wesleyan University. A middle verse
is censored from this version as being out of key and probably an interpolation. At least, it is what
they call apocryphal and of the twilight zone. Observers as diverse as Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood
Anderson, Arthur T. Vance and D. W. Griffith say this song is a great condensed novel of real life.
After hearing it sung with a guitar at Schlogl's one evening in Chicago, D. W. Griffith telegraphed
two days later from New York to Lloyd Lewis in Chicago, "Send verses Foggy Dew stop tune
haunts me but am not sure of words stop please do this as I am haunted by the song."

Arr. H. J.

1. When I was a bach' -lor, I liv'd by my-self, I

&&-v ~] d Jr~~~* F~

F T^ ^TT Hfc-

_y_ j? j_ j^ ^^JL

s ~

>^Lr ^ * i

w ^^ - J

work'd at the wea-ver's

trade; The

on - ly, on - ly thing

jWy i +- -i f-^F

^ j j ,

,-__ __^ l-^^v

H n H n J -d

__^

y*"^r==T + S-" 3 -^

* * j
J -1 *

T ^ * * R

n=^f-^

\ \

-' 9 *' 9 u

r- f ^

a J J t

5*V K i- if *l _J . -.9

\ * J m J

* I H

fc4-& -H *

-f ^

J J *

9 ~V" "" *
^ ^

1 c^ i-*

did that was wrong Was to woo a fair young maid.

I woo'd her in the

FOGGY, FOGGY DEW

win-ter time And in thesum-mer, too; . And the on- ly, on- ly thing I

zgE^rz^^

FINE

did that was wrong Was to keep her from the fog - gy, fog - gy dew.

2. Oh,

--&>-

1 When I was a bach 'lor, I lived by myself,
I worked at the weaver's trade;

The only, only thing I did that was wrong

Was to woo a fair young maid.

I wooed her in the winter-time

And in the summer, too;

And the only, only thing I did that was wrong,

Was to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew.

2 Oh, I am a bach'lor, I live with my son;
We work at the weaver's trade;

And ev'ry single time I look into his eyes

He reminds me of the fair young maid.

He reminds me of the winter-time

And of the summer too;

And the many, many times that I held her in my arms,

Just to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew.

WAILLIE, WAILLIE!

An arrangement of an old-time British piece as made known by Daniel Read and Isadora
Bennett Read of Chicago, Illinois, and Columbia, South Carolina. Its stately diction might be
compared to certain laced ladies and ruffled gentlemen imprisoned in fine porcelain works of Eng-
land a century or two ago. It is a deep heart cry, too profound and prolonged to be called poignant,
yet shaken with memory of passion.

- J '

Slow

When cock-le shells . .

Turn sil-ver

.__ ^_JL

ft_^r^^ n r n

g-P-^-^-^-a- I -|-,E

ar^ i J i I i P "^ -ar^ ! I I ^ -ar^

: _SJ.J _

*^f|t^

L$ KZ

j^3: 3-

Then will my love re - turn . to me. When

ros-es

WAILLIE, WAILLIE!

wail - lie, But love is bon - nie

A lit - tie while When

And fades a - way like eve - ning dew.

St^^rZ~5fe:ij

* ! v ttr l7"

When cockle shells turn silver bells,
Then will my love return to me.
When roses blow, in wintry snow,
Then will my love return to me.
Oh, waillie! waillie!
But love is bonnie
A little while when it is new !
But it grows old and waxeth cold,
And fades away like evening dew.

DIS MORNIN', DIS EVENIN', SO SOON

This arrangement is from the ballad as sung by Nancy Barnhart, painter and etcher, of St.
Louis. It is a monotone of life in songtones of dusk colors and rhythms that emerge from shadows.
The final verse is a scenario for a pantomime.

Arr. H. F.

Not too fast

35iiJbr^5iK=sz^3^ Kltg^TZIZl^

^ f~fr K-^^f-l

: jL -*-J- :ri3? _j^ ^j - _.

Tell old Bill, when he leaves home dis niorn-in', .

fctererd^ =^=r I I-

Tell old Bill, when

!!I

TST

E3EEEJ
=ri^g

sr=^=

zg ^^^^ ijljE. fr ^^izi

he leaves home dis eve - nin', .

~4:z^=r

Tell old Bill, when he leaves home, To

*3=$

let dcm down-town coons a - lone, Dis morn -in 7 , dis eve- nin', so soon.

DIS MORNIN', DIS EVENIN', SO SOON

1 Tell old Bill, when he leaves home dis mornin',
Tell old Bill, when he leaves home dis evenin',
Tell old Bill, when he leaves home,
To let dem down-town coons alone
Dis mornin', dis evenin', so soon.

% Bill left by de alley gate dis mornin',
Bill left by de alley gate dis evenin',
Bill left by de alley gate,
Old Sal says: Now don' be late,
Dis mornin', dis evenin', so soon.

3 Bill's wife was a bakin' bread dis mornin',
Bill's wife was a bakin' bread dis evenin',
Bill's wife was a bakin' bread,

When she got word dat Bill was dead
Dis mornin', dis eveiiin', so soon.

4 O dear, dat can't be so, dis mornin',
O dear, dat can't be so, dis evenin',
O dear, dat can't be so;

For Bill left home 'bout a hour ago,
Dis mornin', dis evenin', so soon.

5 O dear, dat cannot be, dis mornin',
O dear, dat cannot be, dis evenin',
O dear, dat cannot be,

Dey shoot my husband in de firs' degree,
Dis mornin', dis evenin', so soon.

6 Dey brought Bill home in a hurry-up wagon dis mornin',
Dey brought Bill home in a hurry-up wagon dis eveiiin,'
Dey brought Bill home in a hurry-up wagon,

Dey brought Bill home wid his toes a-draggin',
Dis mornin'. dis evenin', so soon.

OH, BURY ME NOT ON THE LONE PRAIRIE

This arrangement is from a song tnown to boys of the Crossroads Club at the University
of Oregon. After a recital and reception there one evening three years ago, we held a song and story
session lasting till five o'clock in the morning. Nearly all nations and the seven seas were repre-
sented. A contingent from the Black Hills of South Dakota sang this version of The Cowboy's
Lament. They put their arms on each other's shoulders, stood in a circle, and cried the lines almost
as a ritual from lonesome flat lands, the arms on each other's shoulders signifying that no matter
how tough life might be they could meet it if they stood together. They pronounced "wind" with
a long "i" as in "find" or "blind," and said the cowhands always sang it in that classical manner.

Arr. H. R

Where the rat - tie- snakes hiss

Oh, bur- y me not on the lone
I ^ *

ES3EW

^ _____^_^J

1 Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie,
Where the wild kiyotes will howl o'er me;
Where the rattlesnakes hiss and the wind blows free,
Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie!

They heeded not his dying prayer,

They buried him there on the lone prairie,

In a little box just six by three,

His bones now rot on the lone prairie.

CARELESS LOVE

This poem, trying to ease heartbreak, uses the simplest of words. They go to a soft, brave
melody. R. W. Gordon, from whose handsome collection this comes, says it reckons among authen-
tic folk fabrics; he has heard it with slight variations in several southern regions. Its lyric cry is
brief, poignant as Sappho. Its measures are close to silence and to art "to be overheard rather
than heard."

Moderate espressivo Arr. A. G. W.

l / K

a^Pg

^ - -

Love, oh love, oh care-less love,

Love, oil love, oh care-less love,

=f^fe^

love, oh love, oh care-less love,

"".-fr I |'l

You see what love has done for me.

1 Love, oh love, oh careless love,
Love, oh love, oh careless love,
It's love, oh love, oh careless love,
You see what love has done for me.

2 Sorrow, sorrow, to rny heart,
Sorrow, sorrow, to my heart,
Sorrow, sorrow, to my heart,

When me and my true love have to part.

3 It's a pity that we ever met,
It's a pity that we ever met,
It's a pity that we ever met,

For those good times we'll never forget.

4 Now my money's spent and gone,
Now my money's spent and gone,
Now my money's spent and gone,
You passed my door a-singing a song.

5 Oh I love my mama and my papa too,
Oli I love my rnama and my papa too,
Oh I love my mama and my papa too,
But I'd leave them both and go with you.

6 Oh I cried last night and the night before,
Oh I cried last night and the night before,
Oh I cried last night and the night before,
Going to cry to-night and I'll cry no more.

7 Oh ain't it enough to break my heart,
Oh ain't it enough to break my heart,
Oh ain't it enough to break my heart,
To sec my man with another sweetheart.

8 Oh it's done and broke this heart of mine,
Oh it's done and broke this heart of mine,
Oh it's done and broke this heart of mine,
And it'll break that heart of yours some time.

THE JOHN B. SAILS

John T. McCuteheon, cartoonist and kindly philosopher, and his wife Evelyn Shaw McCuteheon,
mother and poet, learned to sing this on their Treasure Island in the West Indies. They tell of it,
"Time and usage have given this song almost the dignity of a national anthem around Nassau. The
weathered ribs of the historic craft lie imbedded in the sand at Governor's Harbor, whence an expedi-
tion, especially sent up for the purpose in 1920, extracted a knee of horseflesh and a ring-bolt. These
relics arc now preserved and built into the Watch Tower, designed by Mr. Howard Shaw and
built on our southern coast a couple of points east by north of the star Canopus. "

Moderate m elan col ico Arr. A. G. W.

- J v

Oh, we come on the sloop John B., My gran' - fad - der an' me.

Round Nus-sau Town we did roam,

fight,

I feel so break-up I want to go home!

REFRAIN
POC f

THE JOHN B. SAILS

:fcarj^JE

" 1

So hoist up the Jo/w 1?. sails,

See how de main - s'l set,

Send for de Capt'n a-shore, Lem-me go home !

Lein-megoh

Lem-me go

home!

I feel so" break-up I want to go home!

1 Oh, we come on the sloop John B. 9
My gran'fadder an' me.
Round Nassau Town we did roam,
Drinking all night, we got in a fight,
I feel so break-up I want to go home!

REFRAIN

So hoist up the John B. sails,
See how de main-s'l set,
Send for de Capt'n ashore, Lemme go home!
Lemme go home! Lemme go home!
I feel so break-up I want to go home!

2 De first mate he got drunk,
Break up de people's trunk.

Constable come aboard an' take him away.

Mr. Johnstone, please let me alone.

I feel so break-up I want to go home! Refrain

3 De poor cook he got fits,
Tro' 'way all de grits,

Den he took an' eat up all o* my corn!

Lemme go home, I want to go home!

Di is de worst trip since I been born! Refrain

JOHN HENRY

In southern work camp gangs, John Henry is the strong man, or the ridiculous man, or anyhow
the man worth talking about, having a myth character somewhat like that of Paul Bunyan
in work gangs of the Big Woods of the North. He is related to John Hardy, as balladry goes, but
wears brighter bandannas. The harmonization is by Thorvald Otterstrom: it is massive in its
pounding and evokes the atmosphere in which the powerful titan, John Henry, "does his stuff."

Arr. T. O

Smoothly and fast

Dat a man wtiz a

/ With humor and a firm rhythm

man, An* be - fo' he'd let dat steam drill beat him down He'd fall dead

-S-

-- j -- .-_ ---- tt^-ttih

-4 .1 j -^, ^ ^ _ _ ,.. - -- j

tt^-tth-d - F-^-'-J ^- - 1-- -H-

ft ^ ^ * -

Z Jr__ L _j JR

wid a ham-mer in his han', He'd fall dead

wid a ham-mer in his han'.

1 L^I

t = ^ r * H

5t 4 3
* ^

JOHN HENRY

1 John Henry toP his cap'n
Dat a man wuz a natural man,

An* befo' he'd let dat steam drill run him down,
He'd fall dead wid a hammer in his han',
He'd fall dead wid a hammer in his han'.

2 Cap'n he sez to John Henry :

" Gonna bring me a steam drill 'round;
Take that steel drill out on the job,
Gonna whop that steel on down,
Gonna whop that steel on down."

3 John Henry sez to his cap'n:

" Send me a twelve-poun' hammer aroun',
A twelve-poun' hammer wid a fo'-foot handle,
An' I beat yo' steam drill down,
An' I beat yo' steam drill down."

4 John Henry sez to his shaker:
" Niggah, why don' yo' sing?

I'm throwin' twelve poun' from my hips on

down,

Jes' lissen to de coP steel ring,
Jes' lissen to de col' steel ring! "

5 John Henry went down de railroad
Wid a twelve-poun' hammer by his side,

He walked down de track but he didn' come

back,

'Cause he laid down his hammer an' he died,
'Cause he laid down his hammer an' he died.

6 John Henry hammered in de mountains,
De mountains wuz so high.

De las' words I heard de pore boy say :
" Gimme a cool drink o' watah fo' I die,
Gimme a cool drink o* watah fo' I die! "

7 John Henry had a little baby,
Hel* him in de palm of his han'.

De las' words I heard de pore boy say:
" Son, yo're gonna be a steel-drivin' man,
Son, yo're gonna be a steel-drivin' man! "

8 John Henry had a 'ooman,
De dress she wo' wuz blue.

De las' words I heard de pore gal say:
" John Henry, I ben true to yo',
John Henry, I ben true to yo*."

9 John Henry had a li'l 'ooman,
De dress she wo' wuz brown.

De las' words I heard de pore gal say:
" I'm goin' w'eah mah man went down,
I'm goin' w'eah mah man went down! "

10 John Henry had anothah 'ooman,
De dress she wo' wuz red.

De las' words I heard de pore gal say:
" I'm goin' w'eah mah man drapt daid,
I'm goin' w'eah mah man drapt daid! "

1 1 John Henry had a li'l 'ooman,
Her name wuz Polly Ann.

On de day John Henry he drap daid
Polly Ann hammered steel like a man,
Polly Ann hammered steel like a man.

12 W'eah did yo' git dat dress!

W'eah did you git dose shoes so fine?
Got dat dress f'm off a railroad man,
An' shoes f'm a driver in a mine,
An' shoes f'm a driver in a mine.

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

* This arrangement is from the song as rendered by midnight prowlers in Dallas and Fort Worth,
Texas. It is impressionistic in style, delivering the substance of two lives in brief array. We see
the man behind the bars looking out toward Roberta, who carries a document given her by some
politician or precinct worker. The warden tells her, probably, the day is not Visitor's Day. As
her man considers that he has twenty years yet to serve, he cries out that he would rather be under
the wheels of a fast midnight train.

Arr. H. J.

Moderately fast

Yon - der come Ro - ber - ta!

Tell me how do you know?

E:^~ft--ifr==ft

m ^ ^ ^ -

f 3 H* r f^-fcE-~r~= ^

_t tt 1 fe LJ=^ L^:

. . By de col - or of her a - pron . . an' de dress she wo'

Um - ber - el - la on her shoul - der,

piece o' pa - per in her ban',

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

rit.

She says to the cap - 'n:

"I want my man!"

rit.

tempo

Let de Mid - night Spe - cial . . shine a light on me, . . . .

^ grrr-..^ ? -^ j-

rit motto rit. . .

Oh, twen-ty long years .... in de pen - i - ten - tiar - y ! .

rit.

^3~

Yonder come Roberta! Tell me how do you know?

By de color ob her apron and de dress she wo*.

Umberella on her shoulder, piece o' paper in her han',
She says to de cap'n: " I want my man!"

Let de Midnight Special shine a light on me,

Oh twenty long years in de pen-i-ten-tiar-y!

ALICE B.

This is arranged from the ballad as sung by Arthur Sutherland and the buccaneers of the
Eclectic Club of Wesleyan University. Sutherland, who is the son of a lawyer in Rochester, New
York, first heard of Alice B. when he was with the American Relief Expedition in Armenia, riding
on top of a box car to Constantinople with a friend who came from New Orleans, Louisiana, and
who in that gulf port one day paid $1.50 to a hobo to sing Alice B. as he, the hobo, had just heard
it a few days previously in Memphis from a negro just arriving from Galveston, Texas. This is
as far back as we have to date traced the Alice B. ballad. Though the verses have wicked and
violent events for a theme, they point a moral and adorn a tale in their conclusion. In a sense it
is propaganda in favor of the Volstead Act.

Arr. A. G. W.
Not too slow

__ ._

=^=2^

Oh I'm goin' out West, . . down on the Ri - o Grande,

Sing -in

fare-thec, my hon- ey, O my hon-ey, fare -thec-well ! I'm goin' out West, . down

*=== 3 r^=^f^
=5 I 04=?

bfcz=G=

on the Ri - o Grande,

And it's fare-thee, O my hon - ey, fare- thee-well!

ALICE B.

1 I'm goin' out West, down on the Rio Grande,

Singin' fare-thee, O my honey, O my honey, fare-thee-well!
I'm goin' out West, down on the Rio Grande,
And it's fare-thee, O my honey, fare-thee-well!

2 The twenty-fifth of September, Martin F. a man tall and slender,
He was the man who committed that most terrible deed.

On a Sunday morning, with hardly any warning,
He shot and killed his high-brown Alice B.

3 Martin F. was a coward, he run, how he did run!
In his hand he carried a smokin' forty-one;

He ran up to de co't, says: " Judge, I committed that terrible crime,
And now I'm ready for to serve my ninety-and-nine."

4 Alice B. like a baby lay on her dyin' bed.

She says: " Mammy, I want you to take care of my little girl.
Keep her feet from slippin' through, 'cause I love her, 'deed I do,
An' I hopes to meet her in that other worlY'

5 De judge held co't de very next day;

Martin F. refused, absolutely refused, to testify.
He says: " Judge, I killed my baby, my Alice B.,
And now that I killed her I'm all ready to die."

6 " She was a good woman, an' I loved her, 'deed I did.
We had such good times, together all the time;

Till one night I went out, got filled with nigger gin,
An' when I saw her I completely los' my min'."

7 Then come all you rounders, an' all you high-browns too,
Take heed to what dis man has done.

You may go out some night, get filled with squirrel rum,
An' do the very same thing that Martin has done.

8 Then I'm goin' out West, down on the Rio Grande,
Singin' fare-thee, my honey, my honey, fare-thee-well!
I'm goin' out West, down on the Rio Grande,

Singin' fare-thee, O my honey, fare-thee-well!

per BOY

Po* Boy is a jail song in Oklahoma and Texas. It is also heard among post-graduates from
jail in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. We are left to infer that if the "po* boy"
had made a safe getaway after taking a bag of mail from the baggage car, the woman in the case
would not have run away with another man but would have stayed with him to enjoy the loot.
The lilt of the song is almost gay throughout except for the steady beat of the mournful, melodious
vocables of "po* boy." The "Katy" train is a reference to the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, or
" K.T." railway. Of course, though this is a jail song, it is sung by many who are free and " outside."

Allegretto

Arr. L. R. G.

cold,cold ground; My dad-dy went a - way; My . sis - ter mar-ricd a

rz*r

~f Z> d^TT^E^E^ fH

%-^fc^*^* ^'5 ^b=k-=b^^b^^y^~"" \^^

r V

gam-blin' man; And now Fve gone a - stray. . . I sit here in the

PO' BOY

E_-ft

pris - on; I do the best I can; But I get to think-in' of the

^^^^^i^^^^^^^^^^E^ 1111 ^^

"W^ "^ JB" fi^ 1

f r t

She ran a - way with an- oth - er man, po* boy, She ran a - way with an - oth -er

^Ir r- ^eg3 h r^rr^i

man;

I get to think -in' of the worn-!

I love

iPi

PC' BOY

rttard.

She ran a -way with an - oth - er man, po' boy!

ritard.

1 My mammy's in the cold, cold ground;
My daddy went away;

My sister married a gamblin' man;

And now I've gone astray.

I sit here in the prison;

I do the best I can;

But I get to thinkin* of the woman I love;

She ran away with another man.

Chorus: She ran away with another man, po* boy,
She ran away with another man.
I get to thinkin' of the woman I love;
She ran away with another man.

2 Away out on the prairie,

I stopped that Katy train;

I took the mail from the baggage car;

And walked away in the rain.

They got the bloodhounds on me,

And chased me up a tree;

And then they said, " Come down, my boy,

And go to the penitentiaree."

Chorus: She ran away with another man, po' boy, etc.

3 t( Oh, mister judge, oh, mister judge,
What are you going to do to me? "

" If the jury finds you guilty, my boy,

I'm going to send you to the penitentiaree."

They took me to the railroad station;

A train came rolling by;

I looked in the window, saw the woman I love;

Hung down my head and cried.

Chorus: Hung down my head in shame, po' boy,
Hung down my head and cried;
I looked in the window, saw the woman I love,
Hung down my head and cried, po' boy!
32

THE OULD SOD

AS I WAS WALKIN DOWN WEXFORD STREET

SH-TA-RA-DAH-DEY (IRISH LULLABY)

SHE SAID THE SAME TO ME .

WHO'S THE PRETTY GIRL MILKIN* THE COW?

GIVE ME THREE .GRAINS OF CORN, MOTHER

KEVIN BARRY

THE SON OF A GAMBOLIER ....

HARMONIZATION BY

Lillian Rosedale Goodman
Edward Collins
Alfred G. Wathall . .
Alfred G. Wathall . .

Mollie Nemkovsky

PAGE

35
36
38
40
41
42
44

AS I WAS WALKIN' DOWN WEXFORD STREET

This should be sung easily and casually to begin with, but in the end it is a Celtic "crying out
loud." The mood or tone seems to be of that important Irish drama, "The W'hite Headed Boy,"
where there is trouble for everybody with nobody to blame, or all at fault. This lilt, too, is from
Mother McKinley, formerly of McKinley, Iowa, and later of Chicago.

Arr. L. R. G.

As I was walk-in' down Wex-ford Street Me

fa - ther's house I chanc't to meet; Me a - ged fa - ther stood in the durc, An'me

V. * i ^ -4 J- *^

ritard.

sis - ter stood on the flure, . . While me ten - der moth- er her hair she ture.

As I was walkin* down Wexford Street
Me father's house I chanc't to meet;
Me aged father stood in the dure,
An' me sister stood on the flure,
While me tender mother her hair she ture.
35

SH-TA-RA-DAH-DEY

(IRISH LULLABY)

This little croon is an impromptu, made up in some hour when a man or woman holding a baby,
or rocking a cradle, needed hushing words for a hushing tune. Of course, the statistical information
that a dollar a day is all they pay for work on the boulevard does not interest a sleepy child, but as
crooned by Robert E. Lee, of the Chicago Tribune, the word "boul-e-vard" has comforting and sooth-
ing quality. Lee heard the song from an Irishman in charge of the railroad station at Wallingford,
Iowa. While selling passenger tickets, or making out way-bills, or figuring freight demurrage, or
hustling trunks off and on baggage cars, or piling crates of eggs, "the agent" would ease his heart

with this lullaby.

Arr. E. C.
With a sigh f)f)

Sh - ta - ra-dah-dey, sh-ta- dey, Times is might - y

f r^zz^f

* ^ k >-

hard. A dol - lar a day is all they pay For work on the botil - e -

senza cresc.

J -.L r -L

^ _ ^ * 1 m.

Jlj! Z L.5-!

~*+n r|u f. I ~^^

.__r

vard.

^^E^^^^Eg^^EI:^

Sh - ta - ra - dah-dey, sh - ta - dey, Times is might -y hard. A

sempre )C)D

SH-TA-RA-DAH-DEY

&====E3E

-P +

dol - lar a day is all they pay For work on the boul - e - vard.

Sh - ta - ra - dah- dey, sh - ta - dey, Times is might - y hard, . . A
5^: 5^_ , ....

j , 9

--=^j p

* *

dol - lar a day is all they pay For work on the boul - e - vard.

J^-

^f^^^B^

Sh-ta-ra-dah-dey, sh-ta-dey,
Times is mighty hard.
A dollar a day is all they pay
For work on the boulevard.
Sh-ta-ra-dah-dey, sh-ta-dey,
Times is mighty hard.
A dollar a day is all they pay
For work on the boulevard.
Sh-ta-ra-dah-dey, sh-ta-dey,
Times is mighty hard.
A dollar a day is all they pay
For work on the boulevard.
37

SHE SAID THE SAME TO ME

A briefly etched love story is here, with only a first chapter, leaving the middle and ending
chapters untold. There may be other verses telling of marriage and children, or of fate that ran
otherwise. It is a true Irish lilt, and was sung by folks from the Ould Sod who settled in Iowa.
This version is from Mother McKinley of the family from whom the town of McKinley, Iowa,
was named.

Arr. A. G. W.

Q j 9 _...

Twas in the month of Au - gust, . or the mid - die of Ju - ly, . . One

g r- i ^

eve- ning I went walk -ing, . a fair maid-en I did spy; . . She was

melanconico

mourn - in* for her true love, who was in A - mer - i - kce, . . Agh,

SHE SAID THE SAME TO ME

5EE=j^S

div - il a word I said to her, and she said the same to

'Twas in the month of August, or the middle of July,
One evening I went walking, a fair maiden I did spy;
She was mournin' for her true love, who was in Arnerikee,
Agh, divil a word I said to her, and she said the same to me!

WHO'S THE PRETTY GIRL MILKIN' THE COW?

The fragment here is probably a make-over, a distillation, from an Irish song of lesser grace
and melody. Bob Lee sang this for me, but wasn't sure he had the words right; he would see the
traffic policeman, Tom Burke, and be sure; and Burke said, "Why should ye be wantin' that little

song? It's old. Everybody knows it."

Arr. A. G. W.

'twas on a bright mom - in' in sum-mer When I first heard her

5 "L^I S-

^3gfrJjfa |t E : Er*j|E^=rU^ fl'^EfeiP^ 1 '-']

<~" r

(Icggiero) (rnJO) (dolcissimo)

voice sing - in

low

As he said to a col - leen be -

ji \_ [^_._<i

/T\ ^7% ^TN

side him: "Who's the pret - ty girl milk - in* the cow?"

O 'twas on a bright mornin' in summer
When I first heard her voice singin' low
As he said to a colleen beside him:
"Who's the pretty girl milkin' the cow?'

GIVK ME THREE GRAINS OF CORN, MOTHER

Sometimes it happens that a maudlin, drivelling song published elaborately as sheet music
undergoes a transformation. It mellows and sweetens as it is passed on and sung in new ways.
Harsh contours are worn down, jagged edges smoothed. This is the case with "Three Grains of
Corn.*' I have an 11848 original of the sheet music; it is long; it prolongs desolation beyond endur-
ance or healthy art. The latter quality is not found in the variants known among midwest pioneers.
Of several versions, the most appealing to me is one from the Frariz Rickaby collection, communicated
by Mrs. C. A. Yoder of Bloomington, Indiana. I have gone to this song in certain moods and found
it sickly with melancholy, not worth singing. Again, in other moods, I have gone to it and found it
a gaunt little human drama with a melody carrying some of the tone color of dark, vivid Irish hearts.

Give me three grains of corn, moth- er, On - ly three grains of corn. 'Twill

keep this lit - tie life I have Till the com - ing of

the

morn.

1 Give me three grains of corn, mother
Only three grains of corn.
'Twill keep what little life I have
Till the coming of the morn.

a For I'm dying of hunger and cold, mother
Dying of hunger and cold,
And the agony of such a death
My lips have never told.

5 Oh, how can I look to you, mother,
Oh, how can I look to you

For bread to feed your starving child
When you are starving too?

6 For I read the famine on your cheek
And in your eyes so wild,

And I felt it in your bony hand
When you laid it on your child.

3 Oh, what has old Ireland done, mother, 7 It has gnawed like a wolf at my heart, mother,

Oh, what has old Ireland done, A wolf that was fierce for blood,

That the world looks on and sees them starve, All the livelong day and the night beside,
Perishing one by one? Gnawing for lack of food.

4 There is many a brave heart, mother,
That is dying of hunger and cold,
While only across the channel, mother,
Thousands are rolling their gold.

8 I dreamed of bread in my sleep, mother,
The sight was heaven to see.
I awoke with an eager and famishing lip
And you had no bread for me.

KEVIN BARRY

Tongues of love and hate, breaths of passion and suffering, all mingled with a strange bitter-
sweet, are in this song out of the violent events in Ireland. Probably all wars and revolutions
produce figures like Kevin Barry, though seldom do they have such adequate songs as memorials.
In Nashville, Tennessee, one rnay look at the statue of Sam Davis, who died refusing to turn in-
former and thus save his life. Davis has a statue in bronze; Kevin Barry has a song. These
verses and their wistful, longing melody are from Irish boys and girls in "Chicago who learned the
ballad on the Ould Sod.

Arr. M. N.

Ear - ly on a Mon- day morn- ing, High up - on the gal - lows tree,

* -ffT

T f ?

-=^Es^==gEE:i

Kev - in Bar - ry gave his young life For the cause of lib - er - ty.

1 Early on a Monday morning,
High upon the gallows tree,
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the cause of liberty.

2 Only a lad of eighteen summers,
Still there's no one can deny,

As he walked to death that morning
Nobly held his head up high.

3 Another martyr for old Ireland,
Another murder for the crown,
Brutal laws to crush the Irish
Could not keep their spirits down.

KEVIN BARRY

4 Lads like Barry are no cowards.
From their foes they do not fly;
For their bravery always has been
Ireland's cause to live or die.

5 "Kevin Barry, do not leave us,
On the scaffold you must die!"
Cried his broken-hearted mother
As she bade her son good-bye.

6 Kevin turned to her in silence
Saying, "Mother, do not weep,
For it's all for dear old Ireland
And it's all for freedom's sake."

7 Just before he faced the hangman
In his lonely prison cell,

The Black and Tans tortured Barry,
Just because he wouldn't tell

8 The names of his brave comrades,
And other things they wished to know.
"Turn informer and we'll free you."
But Kevin proudly answered "No!

9 "Shoot me like a soldier.
Do not hang me like a dog,
For I fought to free old Ireland
On that still September morn.

10 "All around the little bakery

Where we fought them hand to hand,
Shoot me like a brave soldier,
For I fought for Ireland."

THE SON OF A GAMBOLIER

Misery with a light-hearted lilt .... a far-flung companion of roving men.

. ' : , ' TIT
[ 4-^4

I'm a ram- bling wretch of pov - er - ty, from Tip 'ry town I came. Twas
Refrain: Then corn-bine your hum-ble dit - ties as from tav-ern to tav-ern we steer; Like

E35

^5=^

*-=

po - ver - ty com-pelled me first to go out in the rain ;
ev - e - ry hon- est f el- low, I drinks my la-gerbeer;

In all sorts of
Like ev - 'ry hon-

wea- ther, be it wet or be it dry, I am bound to get my live - li- hood, or
est fel - low, I takes my whis-key clear, I'm a ram-bling wretch of pov -er - ty, and the
D.C. REFRAIN (Conclusion of REFRAIN) s

EEME^

lay me down and die.
son of a gam-bo-lier.

I'm a son of a, son of a, son of a, son of a, son of a gam-bo - Her.

1 I'm a rambling wretch of poverty, from Tip'ry town I carne.
'Twas poverty compelled me first to go out in the rain;

In all sorts of weather, be it wet or be it dry,

I am bound to get my livelihood or lay me down and die.

Refrain:

Then combine your humble ditties as from tavern to tavern we steer;
Like every honest fellow, I drinks my lager beer;
Like every jolly fellow, I takes my whiskey clear,
I'm a rambling wretch of poverty, and the son of a gambolier
I'm the sou of a, son of a, son of a, son of a, son of a gambolier.

2 I once was tall and handsome, and was so very neat;

They thought I was too good to live, most good enough to eat;
But now I'm old my coat is torn, and poverty holds me fast.
And every girl turns up her nose as I go wandering past.

Refrain:

3 I'm a rambling wretch of poverty, from Tip'ry town I came;

My coat I bought from an old Jew shop way down in Maiden Lane;

My hat I got from a sailor lad just eighteen years ago,

And my shoes I picked from an old dust heap, which every one shunned but me!

Refrain:

MINSTREL SONGS

HARMONIZATION BY PAGE

I WISH I WAS SINGLE AGAIN Harry Gilbert 47

WALKY-TALKY JENNY 48

HAYSEED Alfred G. Wathall .... 50

GOOD-BY LIZA JANE Alfred G. Wathall . . . . 51

WIZARD OIL Henry Francis Parks ... 52

I WISH 1 WAS SINGLE AGAIN

A lawyer with a larger divorce practice than he can handle conveniently tells us that half the
time when divorced men marry again they pick the same kind of a wrong woman a second time.
However that may be today, it seems that the minstrels of a generation past won wide popular
success with a song voicing the troubles of a man who made the same mistake twice. The ditty
spread to mountains and prairies. The version here is one that Edwin Ford Piper heard in Nebraska
when a boy.

Arr. H. G.

333fes

was sin - gle, then, then, When I

was sin - gle, O

sin - gle a - gain, a - gain, And I wish I was sin - gle a - gain. . .

1 When I was single, then, then,
When I was single, O then,
When I was single, my money did jingle,
I wish I was single again, again,
And I wish I was single again.

I married me a wife, then, O then,
I married me a wife, O then,
I married me a wife, she's the plague of my life
And I wish I was single again, again,
And I wish I was single again.

3 My wife she died, then, then,
My wife she died, O then,

My wife she died, and then I cried,
To think I was single again, again,
To think I was single again.

4 I married another, the devil's grandmother,
I wish I was single again,

For when I was single, my money did jingle,
I wish I was single again, again,
I wish I was single again.

WALKY-TALKY JENNY

This has the saunter and the swagger of the southern mountaineers when they are having a
luminous good time. Its style is comic rather than humorous; it has dangerous moods; its eyes
have odd twinkles from under the hat brim; it says to the city slicker, "You all better looka out,
we might be tellin' you to not let the sun go down on you hereabouts." This version of " Walky-
Talky Jenny" came from H. Luke Stancil of Pickens County, Georgia. He wrote the verses and
monologues on the porch of the Holden home in Athens, Georgia, a house which is the residence of
a niece and grandriiece of Alexander Stephens. Long ago, perhaps before the Civil War, a min-
strel troupe played one-night stands in the valley towns, performed with this song, and it was
picked up by the mountaineers and made into what we have here. The mingling of comic bucolic
monologue with song lines arid chorus was a minstrel feature.

Yon- der comes dat ole Joe Brown,De big - ges' liar in town ; He eats more meat dan

an - y man's dog, An' his belt won't reach a - roun'. O, walk- y - talk - y Jen-ny an* a

hub- ble for your trou-ble, An' a walk - y - talk - y Jen -ny, I say ; O, walk- y - talk - y

Jen-ny an' a hub-blc for your trou-blej'm a nig - ger from de state of Al - a- bam!

Yonder comes dat ole Joe Brown,
De bigges' liar in town;
He eats more meat dan any man's dog,
An* his belt won' reach aroun'.

Sing Chorus

O, walky-talky Jenny an' a bubble for your trouble,

An* a walky-talky Jenny, I say;

O, walky-talky Jenny an' a bubble for your trouble,

I'm a nigger from de state of Alabam!

WALKY-TALKY JENNY

I went down de road de udder day, I did, I did, so I did. When I got down dere I seed an ole
man settin' on de bank o' de road, an* I says, " Hey ! ole man, what time is it?" He said, " 'Bout one
o'clock," an' about dat time he knocked me down twice 'fore I could get up once. I said, "Ole
man, I sho' would hate to pass yo' house 'bout twelve o'clock. If you eber do cross my path agin
I'm gwine-a make you ..."

Sing Chorus