Few Days - SARA GREY with Ed Trickett Notes by Bob Blackman

I can't stay in these diggings
Few days, few days
Lord, I can't stay in these diggings
And I am going home

"Few Days" was originally a one-verse sacred song written by John G. McCurry and published in his collection of shape-note spirituals, The Social Harp (1855). McCurry may have simply adapted a traditional
as indicated by George Pullen Jackson's discovery of a very similar piece in the Negro Singer's Own Book (1846). Sara's first verse and chorus match McCurry's creation. This single verse was expanded into a Gold Rush song printed in Put's Golden Songster (San Francisco, 1858). Ken Goldstein has explained, "To this rough and ready crew, no source was necessarily sacred, so that it is not surprising that many of their songs were parodies of, or set to the tunes of widely known religious songs of the day."

Pat Foster and Dick Weissman recorded this as "Then Hurrah for Home" on Gold Rush Songs, Riverside 12-654, in 1957. Harry Tuft, manager of the Denver Folklore Center and a fine singer, learned it from
Weissman and taught it to Sara, sings it on Five Days Singing, Vol. by the New Golden Ring, Folk-Legacy FSI-42. A different set of words to "Then Hurrah for Home" can be found in The Songs of the Gold Rush by Richard A. Dwyer and Richard E. Lingenfelter.

Well, I pitched my tent on this campground,
Few days, few days,
And I give old Satan another round,
And I am goin' home.

I can't stay in these diggin's,
Few days, few days,
Lord, I can't stay in these diggin's,
And I am goin' home.

I'm goin' home to stay awhile.
Before I go I'll plant a smile.

For years I've labored in cold ground,
And now at last I'm homeward bound.

These bankin' thieves I will not trust,
But with me take my little dust.

I do not like these diggin's here,
And I will not stay another year.

My mother she has gone before,
And I'll follow her to glory's door.