Lyr Req: Cocaine song (Tell It to Me)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cocaine song (Tell It to Me)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 12:53 PM

It may be a different tune than the better-known "Cocaine Blues" as sung by Rev. Gary Davis and further popularized by Dave Van Ronk, but the couplets scan the same so lyrics are pretty much interchangeable.

One of my favorite latter-day almost-rhyming elaborations:

The doctor axed me my age / when I went to the hospital
I told him, "twenty-nine, doc." / He said, "Son, that's impossible!"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cocaine song (Tell It to Me)
From: MissouriMud
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 12:05 PM

The first verse of Tell it To Me is very similar to a verse in Dave Van Ronk's old Cocaine Blues:

Started down Beale Street and I'm turnin' up Main
Lookin' for a gal who sells cocaine
Cocaine, run all around my brain

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cocaine song (Tell It to Me)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 10:46 AM

always liked the derek Brimstone verse

went down spain, got on a boat
sailin' cross the Gibraltar moat
shed a tear
For old tangier

hey baby, wont you come here quick, etc.
hasheesh, that is what I wish

Subject: Tab Req: Cocaine song (Tell It to Me)
From: GUEST,OwentheRed
Date: 08 Aug 05 - 07:33 PM

Sorry to double post this one I figured it might be easier to get a response with the right subject line.

Does any body out there know the chords to this one?

-Owen

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cocaine song (Tell It to Me)
From: GUEST,Owen the Red
Date: 07 Aug 05 - 01:40 AM

Does any body out there know the chords to this one?

-Owen

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cocaine song (Tell It to Me)
From: GUEST,Ely
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 10:24 PM

I always thought it was "brandy and snuff" but i'm sure that's wrong--I've known the song for years and I was probably so young that my controlled-substances vocabulary was limited.

I've got it on _the Red Clay Ramblers w/ Fiddlin' Al McCandless_, which is probably my all-time favorite record and is available on CD through Folkways, I think (I got it on efolkmusic.com). I've also got it on Jay Ungar's _Catskill Mountain Goose Chase_, which I don't believe has been reissued (unfortunately). I like the RCR version better but they're pretty similar; the RCR one is livelier.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cocaine song
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 12:54 AM

I have that album with the Grant Brothers recording: "My Rough and Rowdy Ways, Vol. 1," Yazoo 2039, 1998. Some time ago I tried to transcribe it, and I had trouble on the same 2 lines you did, Allan C—here's what I guessed the words were:

Sniff cocaine on a corncob (?) knife.
Sniff cocaine if it takes my life.

All you rounders think you're tough,
Feed your women on Brewer's (?) snuff.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cocaine song
From: GUEST,Les B.
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 04:25 PM

The group Old Crow Medicine Show has "Tell it to Me" as the lead cut on their new CD.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cocaine song
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 04:19 PM

The Pot Song (Jeremy Taylor)

Nigel

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cocaine song
From: Vixen
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 03:44 PM

Allan C--

Thanks! That's it!

(long time, no see...how're ya doin'? PM me!)

V

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cocaine song
From: Allan C.
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 03:19 PM

Whoa! I just now realized that the second link (above) includes numerous audio clips by a wide variety of great artists. The Grant Brothers clip even includes the line you were remembering, Vixen.

Subject: Lyr Add: TELL IT TO ME (from Grant Brothers)
From: Allan C.
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 03:03 PM

How's this? I found it here.

TELL IT TO ME
(as sung by The Grant Brothers

Goin' up fifth street, comin' down Main
Tryin' to make a nickel for to buy cocaine
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead

Tell it to me, tell it to me
Drink corn liquor, let your cocaine be
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead

Sniff cocaine(???)
Sniff cocaine if it takes my life
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead

Tell it to me, tell it to me
Drink corn liquor, let your cocaine be
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead

Sniff cocaine, sniff it in the wind
Doctor said it'd kill me, but he didn't say when
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead

Tell it to me, tell it to me
Drink corn liquor, let your cocaine be
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead

All you rounders think you're tough
Beat your women [run through the snuff]
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead

Tell it to me, tell it to me
Drink corn liquor, let your cocaine be
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead

Tell it to me, tell it to me
Drink corn liquor, let your cocaine be
Cocaine's gonna kill my honey dead

Subject: Lyr Req: Cocaine song
From: Vixen
Date: 17 Feb 04 - 02:54 PM

Got a refrain stuck in my head...

"Drink corn liquor (likker) let the cocaine be
Hey hey buddy let the cocaine be"

Sort of scans like "Take a whiff of me" in the digitrad, but I don't think it's the same song...

Anybody know it?

and where *is* that thread on how to get "stuck" songs out of your head???

V