Lyr Req: Let Your Money Talk (Kokomo Arnold)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Let Your Money Talk' by Kokomo Arnold
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Aug 05 - 03:00 PM

"Rush the can" means making a run at an occupied outhouse thus disrupting someone's urgent deposit. (At least in my part of KY)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Let Your Money Talk' by Kokomo Arnold
From: GUEST,barry biesanz
Date: 11 Feb 04 - 07:01 PM

Thanks, Stewie, that is the stuff! And my memory sure ran it through the folk processor.

I googled 'rush the ca', and think it usually means buying beer by the pail. Here the line could be, he's hitting her up for some cash, and saying, :"if you like your cool something beer sweet mam, we can rush the can."

And I agree, Jim this is a variation on Alabama bound. My thanks to you both.

Barry

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 'Let Your Money Talk' by Kokomo Arnold
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 10:00 PM

This song has some things in common with ALABAMA BOUND.

By the way, the version of ALABAMA BOUND in the DT leaves out the call-and-response structure that I recall someone using—I don't know if it was Lead Belly:

I'm Alabama bound (I'm Alabama bound)
I'm Alabama bound (I'm Alabama bound)
And if the train don't stop and turn around
I'm Alabama bound (I'm Alabama bound)

LET YOUR MONEY TALK seems to have a similar structure, but Kokomo Arnold seems to be singing both the call and response by himself.

Another feature the two songs have in common is the line "Leave [me] a dime for beer."

Subject: Lyr Add: LET YOUR MONEY TALK (Kokomo Arnold)
From: Stewie
Date: 08 Feb 04 - 10:42 PM

I have it on an old Blues Classics LP with Kokomo Arnold on one side and Peetie Wheatstraw on the other. This version does not have the first two stanzas that you quote above. Below is what I hear - I have put in brackets words or phrases I am not certain of.

LET YOUR MONEY TALK

Let your money talk
Let your money talk
Let your money talk
Let your money talk
If you feel like ridin'
And don't want to walk
Let your money talk

Ah you look so (neat)
And you look so (neat)
And you talk so sweet
You talk so sweet
Now you can't get by
No matter how you try
On your dead beat (Could be: oh you're dead beat)

Let your money talk
Let your money talk
So we can hear
So we can hear
If you ain't comin' back
Tell me right now
Leave a dime for beer

Let your money talk
Let your money talk
Put it in my hand
Put it in my hand
If you like your (cool kind)
Barefooted mama, we can rush the can

If you go to the butcher's
If you go to the butcher's
To get your sausage (fryin')
Your sausage (fryin')
If you cain't get it in the front
You don't want it behind

You want your ashes hauled
You want your ashes hauled
And ain't got no man
Ain't got no man
Just lay it on the wood, pretty mama,
Do the best I can

If you want to boogie-woogie
If you want to boogie-woogie
And haven't got the price
And haven't got the price
Just let the landlady know, (old man)
And she will put it on ice

If you can't see
If you can't see
If you're deaf and dumb
If you're deaf and dumb
Don't stand around lookin' cute
And on the bum

Source: transcription of Kokomo Arnold 'Let Your Money Talk' recorded on 18 April 1935 in Chicago and issued as Decca 7191. Reissued on 'Kokoko Arnold/Peetie Wheatstraw Blues Classics LP 4.

If you put "rush the can" in a google search, you get a variety of examples of how the term has been used, but no specific definitions:

Google search results

The most useful in this context seems to be:

"rush the can" — A description of what criminals did when they were lying low in Chicago during the winter. They settles down in their accustomed haunts, "rush the can" and follow their vocation of robbery only when something particularly "easy" turns up or when bad whisky has got the better of their judgment. (Chicago Daily News, November 13, 1897.)

--Stewie.

Subject: Lyr Req: 'Let Your Money Talk' by Kokomo Arnold
From: GUEST,barry biesanz
Date: 08 Feb 04 - 06:17 PM

Years ago I had an LP with Kokomo
Arnold on one side, and Bukka White on the other.
Kokomo did a great version of Alabama Bound called Let Your Money Talk. My mental folk processor tells me it was a slide tune in open G, possibly capoed up.

Some of the words include:

Elder Green's in town (2x) second time is an instrumental repeat
He's got it painted all over his automobile
He's Alabama bound.

Well the rooster crowed (2x)
And the hen ran around (2x)
Said if you want my love, sweet babe
You got to run me down

Let your money talk 4x
If you want to ride you don't have to walk
just let your money talk

Great tune, but I'm missing several verses, and there's a reference to 'rush the can' that I've never figured out...anyone got feedback on that?

Thanks, Barry