Subject: Lyr Add: BEEDLE UM BUM (Blind Willie McTell)
From:
12-stringer
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 02:17 AM
Down in Memphis, Tennessee, lived a girl named Jenny
She run an eats shop on the block, she always kept good gimmy
That was a meal, was tadpole shield, you couldn't resist for tryin'
Everytime you'd pass her door you'd hear Miss Jenny cryin'.
Oh my beedle um bum
Come and see me when you ain't had none
Made a dumb man see, made a lame man run
You miss something when you don't get none
Of my beedle um bum, oh my beedle um bun
Best beedle um that upset Tennessee
Every day about ten o'clock, she'd go down to the station
Folks that came in town she'd give a little invitation.
Every day from noon till night, how she'd keep them sellin'
Beedle 'em hot and beedle 'em cold, you could hear Miss Jenny yellin
Oh my beedle um bum
Come and see me when you ain't had none,
Cause they ain't built small, they're not built wide,
Just built up till the medium size
Oh my beedle um bun, my beedle um bum
Best beedle um that upset Tennessee
The gal I love, she won't stand, she loves home brew and toddy
Every time you take her to a fancy ball, she'll flirt 'most everybody
Then I took her out Cadillac ride, out to the fields of clover
Tried to make everything pacified when the pleasure all was over.
Then she took me to her home, sat down outside the door
Did keep a rainin' and I couldn't go home, she was so fine 'cross the floor.
Talked all right, she talked all right
Then she hugged and kissed till it made me sick,
Wringin' and twistin', made me lose my [pinches strings between the bridge and tailpiece]
Beedle um bum, my beedle um bum,
Come and see me when you ain't had none
Cause you don't have to hurry, don't have to go
Get a little bit you're gonna want some more
Of my beedle um bum, oh my beedle um bum
It's the best beedle um that popped up in Tennessee.
See also http://www.heptune.com/lyrics/beedleum.html for lyrics to a version by McKinney's Cotton Pickers, 1929. It's only a verse and chorus, not a lot more intelligible than McTell's first verse (to me, at least). Song was written by Thomas Dorsey, "Georgia Tom," and was recorded numerous times in the late 20s/early 30s. How much, if any, of McTell's version is original I don't know, as his is the only full-length text I've ever heard!
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