Big Rock Candy Mountain

I always thought this was a kid’s song until I reexamined the lyrics. I guess when Burl Ives had a hit with it in the 1940s I was a kid and the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings sounded appealing. I didn’t notice the gin, cops and stones. It’s about a hobo’s utopia!

The original lyrics are even rougher as you can see here:

I recorded this with a banjo mandolin that I had bought in 1960 and left in San Francisco with a friend. He returned it to me several years ago and I had it refurbished thanks to Wayne & Robyn Rogers owners of Gold Tone Banjo.

Lyrics:
[D] On a summer day
In the month of May
A burly bum came [A] hiking
Down a shady lane
Through the sugar cane
He was looking for his [D] liking
As he roamed along
He sang a song
Of the land of milk and [A] honey
Where a bum can stay
For many a day
And he won’t need any [D] money

Chorus:
[D] Oh the buzzin’ of the bees
the bubblegum trees
[G] soda water [D] fountain
the [A] lemonade springs
Where the [D] bluebird sings
On the [A] big rock candy [D] mountain

There’s a lake of gin
We can both jump in
And the handouts grow on bushes
In the new-mown hay
We can sleep all day
And the bars all have free lunches
Where the mail train stops
And there ain’t no cops
And the folks are tender-hearted
Where you never change your socks
And you never throw rocks
And your hair is never parted
Chorus:

She Never Will Marry

“She Never Will Marry” is an adaptation of some very old ballads. I first heard it sung by a red headed woman at Chicago’s Gate of Horn. Here’s a song that provides a glimpse into its origins:

THE LOVER’S LAMENT FOR HER SAILOR

As I was walking along the seashore,
Where the breeze it blew cool, and the billows did round,
Where the wind and the waves and the waters run
I heard a shrill voice make a sorrowful sound.

Chorus:
Crying, O my love’s gone, whom I do adore,
He’s gone and I will never see him more.

I tarried awhile still listening near,
And heard her complain for the loss of her dear;
Which grieved me sadly to hear her complain
Crying, he is gone and I will never see him again.

She appeared like some goddess, and dressed like a queen,
She’s the fairest of creatures that ever was seen.
I told her I’d marry her myself, if she pleas’d,
But the answer she made me, was my love is in the seas.

I never will marry nor be any man’s bride,
I choose to live single, all the days of my life,
For the loss of my sailor I deeply deplore,
As he’s lost in the seas I shall ne’er see him more.

I will go down to my dearest that lies in the deep
And with kind embraces I will him intreat,
I will kiss his cold lips like the coral so red,
I will close up his eyes that have been so long dead.

The shells of the oysters shall be my lover’s bed,
And the shrimps of the sea shall swim over his head,
Then she plunged her fair body right into the deep,
And closed her fair eyes in the water to sleep.

Lyrics:
[G] They say that [D] love’s a [G] gentle thing
But it’s [C] only [D] brought her [G] pain
For the [C] only [D] man she [G] ever [Em] loved
Has [Am] gone on the [D] midnight [G] train

She never will [D] marry
She’ll be no man’s [C] wife
She expect to live [G] single
All the [D] days of her [G] life

Well the train pulled out
The whistle blew
With a long and a lonesome moan
He’s gone he’s gone
Like the morning dew
And left her all alone

She never will marry
She’ll be no man’s wife
She expect to live single
All the days of her life

Well there’s many a change in the winter wind
And a change in the clouds and Byrds
There’s many a change in a young man’s heart
But never a change in hers

She never will marry
She’ll be no man’s wife
She expect to live single
All the days of her life

Randy Dandy Oh

“Randy Dandy Oh” is a wonderful old sea chantey that I just heard for the first time while walking on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. For some reason this song has eluded me all these years. Camilla and I heard it coming from a shop on the Embarcadero. When we asked the storekeeper for a copy of the CD and he said it was sold out. Thanks to the Internet I was able to track down “Randy Dandy Oh” and learn it. There is sea chantey singing on the Balclutha (pictured above) off the Hyde Street pier the first Saturday of each month so I thought this would be an appropriate song for this month’s Folk Den since we spent nearly three weeks here in San Francisco.

I recorded a new version when I got back home, with banjo and one voice doing verses which is more traditional for a capstan chantey. The original recording is here.

Lyrics:
[Gm]Now we are ready to head for the Horn
Way [F] Hey [Gm] Roll and go!
Our [Bb] boots and our [clothes, boys, [F] are all in the pawn
[Gm]To me rollicking [F]randy [Gm] dandy, oh!

Heave a pawl, heave away,
Way Hey Roll and go!
The anchor’s on board and the cable’s all stored
To me rollicking randy dandy, oh!

Come breast the bar, bullies and heave her away
Way Hey Roll and go!
Soon we’ll be rolling her ‘way down the bay.
To me rollicking randy dandy, oh!

Soon we’ll be warping her out through the locks
Way Hey Roll and go!
Where the pretty young girls all come down in flocks.
To me rollicking randy dandy, oh!

Sing goodbye to Sally and goodbye to Sue
Way Hey Roll and go!
For we are the bullies that can kick her through.
To me rollicking randy dandy, oh!

Roust ‘er up, bullies, the wind’s drawing free
Way Hey Roll and go!
Let’s get the rags up and drive ‘er to sea.
To me rollicking randy dandy, oh!

We’re outward bound for Vallipo Bay
Way Hey Roll and go!
Get crackin’ m’lads, it’s a mighty long way.
To me rollicking randy dandy, oh!

Now we are ready to head for the Horn
Way Hey Roll and go!
Our boots and our clothes, boys, are all in the pawn
To me rollicking randy dandy, oh!

Take This Hammer

I recorded this on the Crystal Serenity ocean liner on the way to Lisbon Portugal last June. Kompoz.com contacted me asking for a song to use in their contest. I provided 7 tracks for contestants to download. This was the winner, a gospel version with wonderful piano and vocal backing!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Take This Hammer” (Roud 4299) is a prison work song. It was collected by John and Alan Lomax. The song “Nine Pound Hammer” has a few phrases in common with this song, and the same Roud number. “Swannanoa Tunnel” is similar, and this group of songs are referred to as ‘hammer songs’ or ‘roll songs’. According to the Columbia State University, the earliest collected version was made by Newman Ivey White in 1915.
Lyrics:

[G] Take this hammer, carry it to the [D] captain
Take this hammer, carry it to the [G] captain
Take this hammer, carry it to the [C] captain
Tell him I’m [G] gone, great [D] God tell him I’m [G] gone

If he ask you was I laughing?
If he ask you was I laughing?
If he ask you was I laughing?
Tell him I’m crying, great God tell him I’m crying

If he ask you was I walking
If he ask you was I walking
IIf he ask you was I walking
Tell him I’m running, great God tell him I’m running

Don’t want no more your cornbread and molasses
Don’t want no more your cornbread and molasses
Don’t want no more your cornbread and molasses
Hurts my pride, great God It hurts my pride.

Take this hammer, carry it to the captain
Take this hammer, carry it to the captain
Take this hammer, carry it to the captain
Tell him I’m gone, great God tell him I’m gone

Christmas Is Coming

The lyrics of Christmas Is Coming stem from the traditional English Christmas feast at which geese were eaten. Children learned that this festive period is a time when each person is encouraged to give to charity, even if all they can give is a half penny.

The first documented reference to a penny is from around 790 AD when it was minted in silver. The design frequently changed, depicting various rulers. The Anglo-Saxon penny had a cross on the reverse side, a symbol of Christianity. These crosses were used as guidelines for cutting pennies into halves and quarters. The ha’penny (half a penny) and farthing (a fourth of a penny) were minted later. The word farthing was derived from ‘fourthing’. The penny changed from silver to copper in 1797 then to bronze in 1860 and finally to copper plated steel in 1992. 

I recorded this on Thanksgiving Day 2009 in Charleston South Carolina at an inn across from Historic St. Philips Church. The bells were ringing as I laid down my guitar track and I captured two minutes of the lovely sound which I blended into the final mix. The bells just happened to be in the right key.

Lyrics:

[C] Christmas is [Dm] coming, the [Am] geese are getting [C] fat
Won’t you please to put a [F] penny in the old [G] man’s [C] hat;
If you haven’t got a [Dm] penny, a [Am] ha’penny will [C] do,
If you haven’t got a [F] ha’penny [G] God bless [C] you!

Frozen Logger

Frank Hamilton played banjo on this at the Old Town School of Folk Music in 1957. It’s a funny song written by James Stevens, the man who made Paul Bunyan famous. Loggers are a tough bunch according to this song and it’s probably true given the harsh conditions they work under! Camilla and I have been traveling in the Northwest for the last two weeks and I decided to record this as a reminder of the end of a wonderful two month tour.

Lyrics:
The Frozen Logger
(James Stevens)

[G] As I sat [D7] down one [G] evening within a [D7] small [G] cafe,
A forty year old waitress to [C] me these words did [D7] say:

“I see that you are a logger, and not just a common bum,
‘Cause nobody but a logger stirs his coffee with is thumb.

My lover was a logger, there’s none like him today;
If you’d pour whiskey on it he could eat a bale of hay

He never shaved his whiskers from off of his horny hide;
He’d just drive them in with a hammer and bite them off inside.

My lover came to see me upon one freezing day;
He held me in his fond embrace which broke three vertebrae.

He kissed me when we parted, so hard that he broke my jaw;
I could not speak to tell him he’d forgot his mackinaw.

I saw my lover leaving, sauntering through the snow,
Going gaily homeward at forty-eight below.

The weather it tried to freeze him, it tried its level best;
At a hundred degrees below zero, he buttoned up his vest.

It froze clean through to China, it froze to the stars above;
At a thousand degrees below zero, it froze my logger love.

They tried in vain to thaw him, and would you believe me, sir
They made him into axeblades, to chop the Douglas fir.

And so I lost my lover, and to this cafe I come,
And here I wait till someone stirs his coffee with his thumb.”

I’ll Fly Away

This grand old gospel song has been sung for generations in the southern United States. I married a southern woman in 1978 and soon learned to pronounce words that I had always thought should have one syllable with the proper two syllables.

Lyrics:

I’ll Fly Away

[A] Some bright morning when this life is over
[D] I’ll fly [A] away
To that home on God’s celestial shore
I’ll [E] fly [A] away

I’ll fly away oh Lordy
[D] I’ll fly [A] away (in the morning)
When I die hallelujah by and by
I’ll [E] fly [A] away

When the shadows of this life have gone
I’ll fly away
Like a bird from these prison walls
I’ll fly away

Oh how glad and happy when we meet
I’ll fly away
No more cold iron shackles on my feet
I’ll fly away

Just a few more weary days and th-en
I’ll fly away
To a land where joys will never e-nd
I’ll fly away

Drill Ye Tarriers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill” is an American folk song first published in 1888 and attributed to Thomas Casey (words) and much later Charles Connolly (music). The song is a work song, and makes references to the construction of the American railroads in the mid-19th century. The tarriers of the title refers to Irish workers, drilling holes in rock to blast out railroad tunnels. It may mean either to tarry as in delay, or to terrier dogs which dig their quarry out of the ground [1]

In the early 1960’s, Pete Seeger took the lyrics from an old Ukrainian folk song mentioned in the Russian novel And Quiet Flows the Don (1934) and the music from “Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill” to create the folk song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” with additional lyrics added later by Joe Hickerson.

Lyrics:
[Am] Every morning about seven o’clock
[E7] There were twenty tarriers drilling at the rock
[Am] The boss comes along and he says, “Keep still
[E7] And bear down heavy on the cast iron drill.”

Chorus
[Am] And drill, ye [G] tarriers, [Am] drill
[C] Drill, ye [G] tarriers, [Am] drill
For it’s [Am] work all day for the [G] sugar in you tay
[F] Down beyond the [E7] railway
And [Am] drill, ye [G] tarriers, [Am] drill
And blast, and fire.

The boss was a fine man down to the ground
And he married a lady six feet ’round
She baked good bread and she baked it well
But she baked it harder than the holes of …..

Chorus

The foreman’s name was John McCann
You know, he was a blamed mean man
Last week a premature blast went off
And a mile in the air went big Jim Goff.

Chorus

And when next payday came around
Jim Goff a dollar short was found
When he asked, “What for?” came this reply
“You were docked for the time you were up in the sky.”

Chorus

First verse

Chorus

When I First Came To This Land

People often ask where I get the folk songs for this site and I explain that I learned many of them at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago in my teen years. This is one of them. I can still see Frank Hamilton with his 5-string banjo and Win Stracky with his cigar and big Martin Dreadnought guitar standing in front of the whole group of students playing When I first came to this land.

The cabin of the Crystal Cruise Serenity ocean liner was so quiet that I was able to record this and another song on our voyage from Miami to Lisbon. With a laptop and great recording software it’s possible to record almost anywhere these days! What a wonderful world!

Lyrics:
[D] When I first came [G] to this [D] land, [G] I was [D] not a ]A] wealthy [D] man
[D] So I bought [G] myself a [D] shack and [G] I did [A] what I [D] could
And I [G] called my [D] shack [A] “Break A My [D] Back”
But the land was [G] sweet and [D] good and [G] I did [A] what I [D] could

When I first came to this land, I was not a wealthy man
So I bought myself a farm and I did what I could
And I called my farm “Muscle In My Arm”
And I called my shack “Break A My Back”
But the land was sweet and good and I did what I could

When I first came to this land, I was not a wealthy man
So I bought myself a cow and I did what I could
And I called my cow “More Milk Now”
And I called my farm “Muscle In My Arm”
And I called my shack “Break A My Back”
But the land was sweet and good and I did what I could

When I first came to this land, I was not a wealthy man
So I got myself a wife and I did what I could
And I called my wife “Friend For Life”
And I called my cow “More Milk Now”
And I called my farm “Muscle In My Arm”
And I called my shack “Break A My Back”
But the land was sweet and good and I did what I could
But the land was sweet and good and I did what I could