HOBO SONGS
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(Contents)
SHOVELLIN' IRON ORE (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM! (Music arr. by Henry Joslyn)
TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP, KEEP ON A- TRAM PING
THE DYING HOGGER (Music arr. by Alfred G. Wathall)
WANDERIN' (Music arr. by Hazd Felman)
A. R. U. (Music arr. by Henry Francis Parks)
WE ARE FOUR BUMS (Music arr. by Elizabeth Marshall)
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SHOVELLIN' IRON ORE
"I got a snootful of it and I'll never go back/' a fellow coal shoveler told me once in Omaha. He was speaking of iron ore, heavier, dirtier, more infiltrating than coal dust. , . . Those who sing this usually hook it up with We Are Four Bums.
JEEVES
fore. A man tried to get me to shov - el i - ron ore. Says
HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM!
This old song heard at the water tanks of railroads in Kansas in 1807 and from harvest hands who worked in the wheat fields of Pawnee County, was picked up later by the I. W. W.'s, who made verses of their own for it, and gave it a wide fame. The migratory workers are familiar with the Salvation Army missions, and have adopted the Army custom of occasionally abandoning all polite formalities and striking deep into the common things and ways for their music and words. A "handout" is food handed out from a back door as distinguished from "a sit down" which means an entrance into a house and a chair at a table.
HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM
1. Oh, why don't you work
Like other men do?
How the hell can I work
When there's no work to do?
Hallelujah, I'm a bum,
Hallelujah, bum again,
Hallelujah, give us a handout,
To revive us again.
2. Oh, I love my boss
And my boss loves me,
And that is the reason
I'm so hungry,
Hallelujah, etc.
3. Oh, the springtime has came
And I'm just out of jail,
Without any money,
Without any bail.
Hallelujah, etc.
4. I went to a house,
And I knocked on the door;
A lady came out, says,
"You been here before."
Hallelujah, etc.
5 I went to a house,
And I asked for a piece of bread;
A lady came out, says,
"The baker is dead."
Hallelujah, etc.
6 When springtime docs come,
O won't we have fun,
We'll throw up our jobs
And we'll go on the bum.
Hallelujah, etc.
TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP, KEEP ON A-TRAMPING
When W. P. Webb asked two hobos in the lockup in Cuero, Texas, "Where you from?" one shrugged his shoulders and said, "Oh, everywhere. We've been from the Atlantic to the Pacific, so we can't say where we're from." Then came an afterthought, "We been everywhere looking for work, and never able to find it." In Denver they had picked up an I. W. W. song to the tune of Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching.
1. He walked up and down the street 'till the shoes fell off his feet,
Across the street he spied a lady cooking stew. And he said, " How do you do,
May I chop some wood for you?" But what the lady told him made him feel so blue.
Refrain: "Tramp, tramp, tramp, keep on a-trampin', There is nothing here for you;
If I catch you round again, You will wear the ball and chain,
Keep a-trampin', that's the best thing you can do."
2. Across the street a sign he read, "Work for Jesus," so it said.
And he said, "Here is my chance, I'll surely try." And he kneeled upon the floor
Until his knees got rather sore, But at eating time he heard the preacher cry:
Refrain:
3. Down the street he met a cop, And the copper made him stop,
And he said: "When did you blow into town?" And he took him to the judge,
But the judge he said, "Ah fudge! Bums that have no money need not come around.
Refrain:
THE DYING HOGGER
Once on a newspaper assignment during the copper mine strike in the Calumet region, I spent an hour with a "wobbly" who had been switchman, cowboy, jailbird. He sang this song. . . . "Hogger " is railroad slang for an engineer or " boghead," while a " tallow-pot " is a fireman. " Snake" and "stinger" are pet names among switchmen and brakemen, whose two brotherhood organizations during a number of years have antagonized each other and engaged in jurisdictional disputes.
THE DYING HOGGER
1. A hogger on his death-bed lay.
His life was oozing fast away;
The snakes and stingers round him pressed
To hear the hogger's last request.
He said, "Before I bid adieu,
One last request I'll make of you;
Before I soar beyond the stars,
Just hook me on to ninety cars.
2. "A marble slab I do not crave;
Just mark the head of my lonely grave
With a draw-bar pointing to the skies,
Showing the spot where this hogger lies.
Oh, just once more before I'm dead
Let me stand the conductor on his head;
Let me see him crawl from under the wreck
With a way-car window-sash around his neck.
3. "And you, dear friends, I'll have to thank,
If you'll let me die at the water-tank,
Within my ears that old-time sound,
The tallow-pot pulling the tank-spout down.
And when at last in the grave I'm laid,
Let it be in the cool of the water-tank shade.
And put within my cold, still hand
A monkey-wrench and the old oil can.'*
WANDERIN'
This peculiarly American song in text A is from Arthur Sutherland of Rochester, New York, as learned from comrades in the American Belief Expedition to the Near East. It is a lyric of tough days. The pulsation is gay till the contemplative pauses, the wishes and the lingerings, of that final line of each verse, and the prolonged vocalizing of "l-i-k-e." The philosophy is desperate as the old sailor saying, "To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then to go to hell after all, would be too damned hard." Text B, also a lyric of tough days, is from Hubert Canfield of Pittsford, New York.
A. WANDERIN'
1. My daddy is an engineer,
My brother drives a hack,
My sister takes in washin*
An' the baby balls the jack,
An' it looks like
I'm never gonna cease my wanderin',
2 I been a wanderin'
Early and late,
New York City
To the Golden Gate,
An' it looks like
I'm never gonna cease my wanderin'.
3 Been a-workin' in the army,
Workin' on a farm,
All I got to show for it
Is the muscle in my arm,
An' it looks like
I'm never gonna cease my wanderin'.
B. WANDERIN'
1 There's snakes on the mountain,
And eels in the sea,
'Twas a red-headed woman
Made a wreck out of me,
And it looks like
I'm never gonna cease my wanderin'.
Ashes to ashes
And dust to dust,
If whiskey don't get you,
Then the women must,
And it looks like
I'm never gonna cease my wanderin 9 .
A. R. U.
The American Railway Union gtrike of 1893, led by Eugene V. Debbs, paralyzed traffic on railways of the Northwest. As the concerted stoppage of work began, not a wheel moved on thousands of miles of right-of-way; it was a terrific tie-up, a red chapter in American transportation history. The railway managers blacklisted A. R. U. men; strikers drifted to other railroads, got jobs under new names, were detected, dropped from the pay rolls, and again put "on the hog," riding hog and cattle cars. These drifters made a song out of their grief. C. W. Loutzenhiser of Chicago met a brother A. R. U. man in the Illinois Central switchyards at Macomb, Mississippi; they held a little songfest; one song has verses flinging a switchman's gauntlet into the face of Fate. It is a gay-hearted tune asking Lady Luck, in plain railroad slang, not to be too hard. "Go screw your nut," in rail talk means, "Be on your way." Railway lines alluded to here can be located at any railway station information desk; also hotel porters are ready to assist. R. W. Gordon gave me the verses in Darien, Georgia, and sent me to Loutzenhiser in Chicago for the melody. A good man, with a brick-dust face and invincible Irish eyes, is Loutzenhiser. In the course of our acquaintance he made the casual remark, "The fellows that sing the songs I know have all gone where the Woodbine twineth and bcjeez maybe I ought to go too." He seemed a serene, self-contained soul, once laughing after singing a sweet Irish ditty, "I sing these songs to keep from goin' bugs."
A. R. U.
Been on the hummer since ninety-four,
Last job I had was on the Lake Shore,
Lost my office in the A. R. U.
And I won't get it back till nineteen-two
And I'm still on the hog train flagging my meals,
Ridin' the brake beams close to the wheels.
WE ARE FOUR BUMS
If a man shall not work neither shall he eat. ... Is that so? ... A bums' song . . . heard among glee club boys and among persona who go to the Barber's College for a haircut. . . .
1 We are four bums, four jolly good chums,
We live like royal Turks;
We're having good luck, in bumming our chuck,
God bless the man that works!
2 We are four bums, four jolly good chums,
We live like royal Turks;
We're having good luck, in bumming our chuck,
To hell with the man that works!