When I recorded this song, I did not pay a royalty because I was unable to find any relative or representative of the alleged composer.

I have a cassette recording made from a 1976 KFAT fm radio broadcast of Utah Phillips concert at the Strand Theater in Santa Cruz, CA. On the tape, Mr. Phillips says that "Hobo's Last Ride" was one of the oldest hobo ballads, composed by a man named Patterson in the 1890s, and published long ago in "Hobo News".

Those who were close to late Mr. Phillips know that he was a great and mighty repository of folk knowledge, but often a careless historian. It is entirely possible that it was published in "Hobo News", however I have not yet had the opportunity to corroborate this assertion.

"Hobo's Last Ride" was first published on page 131 of George Milburn's 1930 _Hobo's Hornbook_, (published by Washburn in New York). This is still probably the best book on the subject of hobo lore, poetry and song, and it is a shame the book is out-of-print and quite rare. Milburn must have been finishing his manuscript when the stock market crashed, as his book was published before the worst years of the Great Depression.

For more than half the poems and songs in _Hobo's Hornbook_, Milburn offers no author's name. So his naming of A.L. Kirby is exceptional in that regard. Furthermore, Milburn certainly had access to "Hobo News," which was still in print when we has compiling his manuscript.

At this point I should mention that many hours in university libraries has yielded not one word about this A.L. Kirby. I have learned nothing about him, nor located any of his other poems.

In 2004, when I was writing the liner notes for my "Orphan Train and Other Reminiscences" CD, I wrote to Mr. Phillips. I asked him about the authorship of "Hobo's Last Ride." And, communicating as he liked to do, through his friend and neighbor, the singer and songwriter, Kuddie, Mr. Phillips response was that he agreed that the song was most likely by A.L. Kirby, and not Patterson. This is why I have credited the song as such.

To introduce the song "Hobo's Last Ride," Milburn writes:

"As a tribe, the hoboes are not a sentimental lot. I have never heard a mammy song in a jungle camp. Tearful selections are not popular among the fraternity, and the hobo is more likely to burlesque sentimentality, than to take it seriously. (See "The Dying Hobo," and "Down in the Mohawk Valley.") The following poem by A.L. Kirby, however, is superior to the usual mawkish homeguard songs about hoboes."

Milburn supplies no melody for the tune. The lyrics Milburn printed are different from those I learned in the oral tradition, and tell an even more melancholy story:

In the Dodge City yards of the Santa Fe
Stood a freight made up for the east,
The engineer, with oil and waste,
Was grooming his iron beast,
While ten cars back in the murky dust
A boxdoor door swung wide,
And a hobo lifted his pal aboard
To start on his last long ride.

A lantern swung, and the freight pulled out.
The engine gathered speed;
The engineer pulled the throttle wide,
And clucked to his iron steed,
While ten cars back, in the empty,
The hobo rolled a pill,
And the flaring match showed his pardner's [sic] face,
Stark white and deathly still.

The train wheels clipped on the coupling joints,
The song for a ramber's ears,
And the hobo talked to the lifeless form
Of one he'd palled with for years.
"For a long, long stretch we've rambled, Jack,
With the luck of the men that roam,
A backdoor step for a dining room,
And a boxcar for a home."

"We've dodged the bulls on the C.B. & Q,
And the shacks on the Chesapeake.
We bummed the Leadville narrow gauge
In the days of Cripple Creek;
We've coasted down through Sunny Cal
On the rails of the old S.P.,
And all you had, through good or bad,
One half belonged to me."

"One day you made me promise Jack,
If I lived when you cashed in,
That I'd take you back and bury you
In the churchyard with your kin.
You seemed to know that I'd keep my word,
For you found that I was white,
And so I'm true to my promise, pal - -
I'm keeping it tonight."

"I knew that the fever had you right.
The pill-roller wouldn't come.
Too busy treating the decent folks
To doctor a worn-out bum.
And I hadn't the dough to send you back,
So I'm taking you on the fly.
It's a fitting way for a 'bo to ride
To the sweet bye and bye."

The rattler rolled on its ribbons of steel,
Straight through to the east it sped;
The engineer, on his high cab-seat,
Kept his eyes on the rails ahead,
While ten cars back, in the empty,
A lonely hobo sighed
For the days of old with his faithful pal,
Who was taking his long last ride.