You can hear this song at http://www.philxmilstein.com/probe/05.htm (or click to play). (By the way, that site has lots of other songs about "policy.")


FOUR ELEVEN 44
Papa Charlie Jackson, Paramount 12375, 1926

1. I felt so bad the other night.
Had nothing left but an appetite.
I looked in my purse. I had a little dough,
So I decided to play four eleven forty-four.

CHORUS: So policy is all I hear all day.
What good is it? You don't know what to play.
You think of many numbers you've heard before.
So always keep playing four eleven forty-four.
The other night I thought I'd always be broke.
Four-eleven-forty-four made me out of a joke(?).
So always keep playing four eleven forty-four.

2. I went to the wheel. They wouldn't let me in.
I stood on the steps right out in the wind.
"Mister man, mister man, please open the door.
I want to play four eleven forty-four."

3. So while they pulled the numbers, I sat real quiet.
I felt like things wasn't goin' work right.
I got nervous, started to go,
When the last three numbers were four eleven forty-four.


["Policy," a.k.a. the numbers game, was an illegal lottery played mostly in poor neighborhoods in U.S. cities.]