The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #167122 Message #4026666
Posted By: Joe Offer
06-Jan-20 - 10:07 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Junco Partner (Dr John's version)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Junco Partner (Dr John's version)
OK, so here's the YouTube link:I'll put my headphones on and make a stab on it later, but it's very hard to understand.
The video does have an attempt at a transcription: Down the road came a Junco Partner
For he was loaded as can be
He was knocked out, knocked out loaded
He was a'wobblin' all over the street
Singing six months ain't no sentence
And one year ain't no time
I was born in Angola
Serving fourteen to ninety nine
Well I wish I had me a million dollars
Oh one million to call my own
I would raise meat and say, "grow for me baby"
I would raise me a tobacco farm
Well I wish I would have me a great deal of money
Yeah and mighty good things all over town
Now I ain't got no more money
All of my good friends are putting me down
So now I gotta pawn my rifle and pistol
Yeah I'm gonna pawn my watch and chain
I would have pawned my seat Gabriella
But the smart girl she wouldn't sign her name
Give me headstone when I die
(boy, I don't like this transcription at all)
I did the lyrics transcriptions for the Rise Again Songbook, and the Blues chapter drove me crazy (I think we got pretty good results, though). Some of those songs are so good, but they're so hard to understand completely. At the time, I had a bit of correspondence with Michael Taft, former head of the American Folklife Collection at the Library of Congress. Mr. Taft had done a book of blues lyrics transcriptions titled Talkin to Myself: Blues Lyrics, 1921-1941. Mr. Taft said that he had such a hard time transcribing these songs, that he was almost embarrassed to publish them. No matter what he thinks of his own book, I love it.
-Joe-