Rather spookily I've just come back from seeing AH, and there's this request posted. Here are the words. Mick
THE APPALACHIAN FRONT PORCH GAME (Asheley Hutchings) Back in Nineteen-Hundred and Seventeen A pair of lonely figures in the creek were seen, And one was under a hat of straw But nothing like the Panama the cotton-planters wore, And the one beside him wore a long white shirt And her dainty little fingers held it up from the dirt, For the path was ended but the creek was dry When this couple came a-calling in the mountains high. Chorus: Come the raw and ragged come the lithe and lame Nearly every Appalachian played the front porch game. It was tell a story, scrape an old-time tune It was kiss and swing your partner by the light of the moon. Some would rise to meet them from a front porch stool, Some were sitting in a rocking chair or sat across a mule, With a smile to greet them and an outstretched hand And a 'Howdy' for the strangers from a foreign land. And they sang of pirates and knights of yore, Ballads that had travelled over centuries before, And the settlers living in The Blue Ridge Hills They had made the songs their own and they were singing them still. Chorus O, the roads were rocky and the dust flew high And the hot and dirty catkins were a home to the flies, But the dogwood rose was the purest white And the mountain top anona was a beautiful sight. With a pad and pencil Mr. Sharp came by And he gathered up his treasures in the wink of an eye. There was half a ton of ballads and a bag of memories They were carted back to England on the high and mighty seas. Chorusx2 Source: Albion Band
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