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Danville Girl (Danville Girl as Belt Line Girl)
Traditional Old-Time, Breakdown and Song. USA, Mississippi.
ARTIST: Lyrics as recorded by THE ALMANAC SINGERS, New York, NY, c. Feb 1942, and reprinted ibid., p. 104. ORIGINAL ISSUE: "DEAR MR. PRESIDENT," Keynote K-305-B (KEYNOTE ALBUM 111), 1942. [AGNES "SIS" CUNNINGHAM, solo vocal]
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes
DATE: Late 1800’s; (1927 recordings, Burnett & Rutherford, Dock Boggs)
RECORDING INFO: Burnett & Rutherford, "Ramblin' Reckless Hobo" (Columbia 15240-D, 1927; on BurnRuth01); Dock Boggs, "Danville Girl" (Brunswick 132B, 1927); (on Boggs2, BoggsCD1); New Lost City Ramblers, "Danville Girl" (on NLCR06); Pete Seeger, "Danville Girl" (on PeteSeeger02, PeteSeegerCD01) Recorded for the Library of Congress by Herbert Halpert from the playing of John Hatcher, Tishomingo County, Mississippi, 1939. Boz Scaggs cover from the album "Boz Scaggs" on Atlantic SD 19166 (Waiting for a Train);Boggs, Dock. Dock Boggs, Vol 2, Folkways FA 2392, LP (1965), cut# 3; Boggs, Dock. Country Blues, Revenant 205, CD (1997), cut# 5; Dane, Barbara. Anthology of American Folk Songs, Tradition TR 2072, LP (196?), cut#B.04; Elliot, Jack; and Derroll Adams. Roll On Buddy, Topic 12T 105, LP (1957), cut# 9; Elliot, Ramblin' Jack. Jack Elliot, Archive of Folk Music FS-210, LP (19?), cut#B.02; Glazer, Joe. Union Train, Collector 1925, LP (1975), cut#A.02; Guthrie, Woody. Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs, Vol. 2, Folkways FA 2484, LP (1964), cut#A.06; Houston, Cisco. I Ain't Got No Home, Vanguard VRS 9107, LP (1960), cut# 4; Pine River Boys with Maybelle. Outback, Heritage (Galax) 003 (III), LP (1974), cut#A.03; Scott and Stanley. Hard Times in the Country, Talkeetna TR 100, LP (1974), cut#B.02; Sky, Patrick. Two Steps Foreward - One Step Back, Leviathan SLIF 2000, LP (197?), cut#B.04; Williams, Robin and Linda. Robin and Linda Williams, Flashlight FLT 3003, LP (1975), cut#A.05;
OTHER NAMES: “Wild and Reckless Hobo,” “Waiting for a Train (attributed to Jimmie Rodgers),” "Ten Thousand Miles Away from Home," “The Railroad Bum,” “Western Hobo,” "Belt Line Girl;" "New Danville Girl," “Brownville Girl”
RELATED TO: “Knoxville Girl;” "More Pretty Girls Than One"
SOURCES: Laws H2, "Ten Thousand Miles Away from Home; A Wild and Reckless Hobo; "The Railroad Bum;" Randolph 836, "A Wild and Reckless Hobo;" Sandburg, pp. 456-457, "Ten Thousand Miles Away from Home"; Lomax-AFSB, pp. 28-30, "Ten Thousand Miles from Home;" Ohrlin-HBT 42, "Sam's 'Waiting for a Train'" Silber-FSWB, p. 54, "Danville Girl," Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 130, "At the Jail"
NOTES: G Major. Listed as a fiddle tune in Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc. Recorded for the Library of Congress by Herbert Halpert from the playing of John Hatcher, Tishomingo County, Mississippi, 1939.
The song belongs with a group of “hobo” songs which share several verses: Wild and Reckless Hobo, Waiting for a Train, and Danville Girl itself. The song was probably composed around 1870 or 1880 and many recordings document one or another version under the above titles. Norm Cohen, Long Steel Rail has a comprehensive and extended discussion of the song and its history. It’s been used by Bob Dylan for several new versions including "New Danville Girl/Brownville Girl/New Brownville Girl” and Woody Guthrie for "Belt Line Girl."
Jimmie Rodgers’ version of "The Danville Girl" is named “Waiting for a Train.” It is credited to Jimmie Rodgers by John Greenway and others but certainly is Rodgers adaptation of “Danville Girl’ from folk sources.
"The Danville Girl" subtext is identified by the verses that set it apart, including the “You bet your life she's out of sight/She wore those Danville curls” and “'She wore her hair on the back of her head/Like high-toned people do.” It's also got floating verses, including some from "Gambling Man"
From Alan Lomax's notes to PeteSeeger02, "There are stanzas in this one from so many different hobo songs, sung in so many different ways, that one might call this the master hobo song. Actually I had some hand in mixing the verses together in American Ballads and Folk Songs (Macmillan, 1934), from which this version comes."
LYRICS:
I stood on the station platform
And looked at the lonesome track.
The train had gone around the curve
The train that might never come back
For it carried my soldier sweetheart away
The one I loved so true.
My heart was sad, but I did not weep
I thought of the work to do.
Joe had gone to the fighting front
And he left his job behind
Now I must step into his place
On the long assembly line.
I said I'll learn to build a ship
I'll learn to build a plane
For the faster we speed this belt line, girls,
The quicker our boys return.
If you think that danger is far away
And cannot reach our shore
Go ask the wives of MacArthur's men,
They'll tell you about this war.
Go ask the widows of the Pearl Harbor boys
Our heroines brave and fine
You'll find them at work in the training schools
And on the assembly line.
If a thousand men leave a thousand jobs
To go and fight the foe,
Our factory wheels would slacken their speed
And the belts would move too slow.
But when a thousand hard working girls
Step in and take a hand
Out roll the tanks and the planes and guns
And there's freedom in the land.
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