Lyr. Add: THE NEGRO BUM

I wus goin' down the railroad, hungry an' wanted to eat,
I ask white lady for some bread an' meat,
She giv' me bread an' coffee, an' treated me mighty kin',
If I could git them good handouts, I'd quit work, bum all the time.

Well, the railroad completed, the cars upon the track,
Yonder comes two dirty hobos with grip-sacks on dere backs,
One look like my brother, the other my brother-in-law,
They walk all the way from Mississippi to the state of Arkansas.

This fragment shows that "Waiting For a Train" was collecting variants long before recordings were made of the song. Collected from Negroes resident in Newton Co., GA, before 1911.

No. 58, "The Negro Bum," p. 353, Howard W. Odum, 1911, "Folk-Song and Folk Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes- concluded," Jour. American Folklore, vol. 24, Oct.-Dec. 1911.