Lyr Req: Railroad Bill (from Will Bennett)

Subject: Lyr Req: Will Bennett's 'Railroad Bill'
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 03:11 PM

I have been trying, without success, to decipher the last two verses of Will Bennett's "Railroad Bill". Has anybody ever figured out what they might be? According to Norm Cohen in LONG STEEL RAIL, Bennett recorded this in 1929 on Vocalion (1464) in Knoxville, Tennessee. It has been reissued on "People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs 1913-1938".   Here are the rest of the lyrics:

Railroad Bill, ought to be killed
Never worked and he never will

Railroad Bill done took my wife
Threatened on me, that he would take my life

Going up on the mountain, take my stand (chance)
Forty-one derringer in my right and left hand

Going up on the mountain, going out west
Forty-one gun just sticking in my breast

Buy me a gun just as long as my arm
Kill everybody ever done me wrong

Buy me a gun with a shiny barrel
Kill somebody about my good-looking gal

Got a thirty-eight special on a forty-four frame
How in the world can I miss him when I've got dead aim

When I went to the doctor, asked him what the matter could be
Said if you don't stop drinking, son, it'll kill you dead

Going to drink my liquor, drink it in the wind
Doctor said it will kill me, but he never said when

If the river was brandy and I was a duck
I'd sink to the bottom and I'd never come up

Honey, honey, do you think of me
Times have caught me living on pork and beans

Son, you talk about your honey, you ought to see mine
She's humpbacked, bow-legged, crippled and blind

Honey, honey, do you think I'm a fool
Think I'm going to quit you while the weather is cool
----
Here are the garbled ones:

Honey, honey, quit your worrying me
It's going through the world in my heart disease

Going to the mountain *do everything*
Go through the world :

Thanks for your help.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Will Bennett's 'Railroad Bill'
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 03:14 PM

That suggestion about going through the world "in my heart disease" is somebody else's guess and not mine. It doesn't make any sense to me and I would probably discount it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Will Bennett's 'Railroad Bill'
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 05:23 PM

Might it be "achin' heart disease?"

That idea/motif/phrase is in several other songs.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Will Bennett's 'Railroad Bill'
From: Dead Horse
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 06:13 PM

More like "for my hearts ease" iffen ya was ta ax me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Will Bennett's 'Railroad Bill'
From: John Minear
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 06:36 AM

I appreciate your suggestions. And what about that last verse? Has anybody ever been able to make anything out of it? j.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Will Bennett's 'Railroad Bill'
From: Stewie
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 07:51 PM

Paul Oliver gives a part transcription at pp241-242 of the Cambridge Uni paperback edition of 'Songsters & Saints'. Unfortunately, he ends his transcription at the 38 Special stanza. However, he goes on to note:

Will Bennett's interpretation of the song has several more verses, but these are dissociated from the main theme. In his concluding stanza, he stated 'I'm goin' to the World in the Natchez Queen', making an oblique reference to the World's Fair, held in St Louis in 1904; an indication at least of the age of some of the verses he was using, and very probably an indication of the advanced age of the singer himself.

I hope the above is of some help.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Will Bennett's 'Railroad Bill'
From: Stewie
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 08:43 PM

I finally dug out a copy from my vinyl collection. I see what you mean about garbled. I can't help much, but what I hear is something like;

Honey, honey quit worryin' me
I'm goin' to the World in my (hard machine??)

Goin' in the morning, (sounds something like 'bravest/gravest thing')
Goin' to the World in the Natchez Queen

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Will Bennett's 'Railroad Bill'
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 06:47 AM

Stewie, thanks for your efforts. That information is helpful. From what I have seen of all the different versions of "Railroad Bill" that I know about, most of them are somewhat "dissociated from the main theme"! It seems to be great song for sticking in all kinds of other stuff and I must admit I enjoy doing that myself. j.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Railroad Bill (from Will Bennett)
From: John Minear
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 06:52 PM

So, what about this possibility?

Honey, honey, quit worryin' me,
I'm going to the world in my hearts of steel.

Googling "hearts of steel" is interesting. I haven't been able to get beyond the rock group yet, but I wonder if anybody has any historical references for this phrase. Of course now when I listen to Will Bennett singing this verse this is what I hear. Does anybody else hear this? J.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Railroad Bill (from Will Bennett)
From: Joe_F
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 08:22 PM

Remembered from somewhere a long time ago:

Railroad Bill, ran his train so fast,
Couldn't see the postes as they passed.

Railroad Bill, standing on a hill,
Lighting a cigar with a ten-dollar bill.

Railroad Bill, he was so bad,
Stole all the money his old man had.

(In the dialect of this version, the plural of "post" has two syllables. Pos', postes. Goes back to Middle English.)