Lyrics & Knowledge Personal Pages Record Shop Auction Links Radio & Media Kids Membership Help
The Mudcat Cafesj

Post to this Thread - Sort Descending - Printer Friendly - Home


Lyr Req: A Dollar a Day Is All They Pay for Work..

Joe Offer 13 Apr 01 - 08:43 PM
Joe Offer 17 Apr 01 - 10:38 PM
Joe Offer 18 Apr 01 - 12:55 PM
Joe Offer 21 Apr 01 - 04:20 AM
Joe Offer 16 Jul 01 - 01:37 AM
Liam's Brother 16 Jul 01 - 05:54 AM
GUEST 14 Nov 07 - 04:26 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 14 Nov 07 - 04:57 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 14 Nov 07 - 04:59 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 14 Nov 07 - 05:08 PM
Janie 14 Nov 07 - 07:57 PM
Joe Offer 14 Nov 07 - 08:07 PM
Joe Offer 14 Nov 07 - 08:20 PM
Joe Offer 16 Nov 07 - 01:57 PM
GUEST,Mary Ratcliff 16 Jun 09 - 10:28 PM
Rowan 16 Jun 09 - 10:48 PM
GUEST,O'Connor 14 Nov 09 - 08:20 PM
GUEST,GUEST, Kelly 02 Feb 10 - 10:21 PM
GUEST,999 02 Feb 10 - 10:32 PM
GUEST 25 Mar 11 - 03:15 PM
GUEST,Lisa 15 Jul 17 - 07:37 PM
Joe Offer 16 Jul 17 - 02:07 AM
GUEST,cindy 15 Nov 17 - 11:08 AM
Share Thread
more
Lyrics & Knowledge Search [Advanced]
DT  Forum Child
Sort (Forum) by:relevance date
DT Lyrics:





Subject: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay for Work on the Blvd
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 08:43 PM

My friend Mrs. Lev has another puzzler for us. She's wondering if there's anything more to this song.
Hush-ta-ra-ra-ray
Hush-ta-ra-ra-rah
Times is gettin' hard
A dollar a day is all they pay
For work on the boulevard.
We do have one song, Last Winter Was a Hard One (Rise Up Mrs. Reilly), that has the phrase "work on the boulevard." No connection I can see, though.
-Joe Offer-


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Apr 01 - 10:38 PM

still need help....
Help?


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:55 PM

help!


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Apr 01 - 04:20 AM

still nobody?


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Jul 01 - 01:37 AM

Mrs Lev is going to be very disappointed if we can't come up with this one...


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 16 Jul 01 - 05:54 AM

"When McGuiness Gets A Job," which is the vaudeville original of "Last Winter Was A Hard One" dates from 1880 when Italian immigrants were challenging the Irish in New York with cutthroat wage competition for manual labor jobs. For a few reasons, "Dollar A Day" would seem to come from the same time and background.

I have not run across "Dollar A Day" in looking through 19th century American songsters but that's one place Mrs. Lev might like to look.

All the best to you and yours,
Dan


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:26 PM

I remember this song from grade school in Upstate New York in the mid '60s. I think this is all there was to this song. I still remember the tune.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: ADD: SH-TA-RA-DAH-DEY
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:57 PM

Printed with musical score in Carl Sandburg, 1927, "The American Songbag," pp. 36-37. Heard by Robert E. Lee of the Chicago Tribune from an Irishman in charge of the railroad station at Wallingford, Iowa.

SH-TA-RA-DAH-DEY
(Irish Lullaby)

[With a sigh]
Sh-ta-ra-dah-dey, sh-ta-dey,
Times is mighty hard.
A dollar a day is all they pay
For work on the boulevard.
Sh-ta-ra-dah-dey, sh-ta-dey,
Times is mighty hard.
A dollar a day is all they pay
For work on the boulevard.
Sh-ta-ra-dah-deh, sh-ta-dey,
Times is mighty hard.
A dollar a day is all they pay
For work on the boulevard.

Score in 6/8 Arr. E. C.

Click to play

(from Sandburg)


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:59 PM

Song was reproduced in "Songs for Tomorrow."


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 05:08 PM

Also titled "Times Is Mighty Hard," www.freehandmusic.com.

Listed with many other songs, camp, scout, etc., in "Index of Songs in Songbooks," Index of Songbooks


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: Janie
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 07:57 PM

We did this as a round in the little folk group I sang with in high school.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 08:07 PM

Thank you, Q. Mrs. Lev will be so pleased. I'm a little annoyed with myself, because Sandburg's Songbag sits less than three feet from my chair, and I didn't find it. Here's the entry from the Traditional Ballad Index:

Sh-Ta-Ra-Dah-Dey (Snagging the Klacking)

DESCRIPTION: "Sh-ta-ra-dah-dey, sh-ta-dey, Times is mighty hard. A dollar a day is all they pay For work on the boulevard." Alternately, "Hip-fa-lad-di-dee/Graybacks/Are mighty thick/A dollar a day/Is all they pay/For snaggin'/The Klacking Creek."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Sandburg)
KEYWORDS: work lullaby hardtimes lumbering nonballad logger worksong
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Sandburg, pp. 36-37, "Sh-Ta-Ra-Dah-Dey" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Beck 23, "Snaggin' the Klacking" (1 short text)

Roud #6515 and 8861
NOTES: While Beck gives no information about the circumstances under which the song was sung, it sounds enough like a worksong that I've given it that keyword. - PJS
Whereas Sandburg lists his as a lullaby. I can't prove that these two are the same song -- but they're too similar to separate until fuller versions come along. - RBW
File: San036

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2016 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.


Click to play

(from Sandburg)
The song is also in Songs of Work and Protest, by Edith Fowke and Joe Glazer - title is "Times Is Mighty Hard," but it's taken direct from American Songbag.

Instrumental: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Caoz-HDHiiw


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: ADD: Snaggin' the Klackin'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 08:20 PM

Snaggin' the Klackin'

Hip-fa-lad-di-de!
Hip-fa-lad-di-de!
Graybacks, they are mighty thick.
A dollar a day
Is all they pay
For snaggin the Klackin' Crick

source: Beck, Lore of the Lumber Camps, #17, p 47.
singer: Fred Scribner
(no tune available)

Klacking Creek is one of several smaller streams flowing through the Ogemaw Hills timberland of Michigan (northwest of Saginaw).

-Joe-


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 01:57 PM

Anybody know of recordings of this song? Anybody sing it?
The first note of the "sh" is interesting, and I didn't know how to turn it into a MIDI. You know how a quarter note is usually a circle and a stem? Well, this one has an "x" instead of a circle. I think I remember from long-ago music theory class that the symbol means the note is spoken instead of sung, right? In this case, I think the "sh" is supposed to be whispered at "C" for two beats.

-Joe-


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On
From: GUEST,Mary Ratcliff
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 10:28 PM

I heard this song alot when I was a kid. I didn't know what a boulevard was but the song sounded very soothing. It just went sh ta ra ta dey sh ta dey times is mighty hard, a dollar a day is all they pay for work on the boulevard. Heard it from my grandma. Yes she was Irish. Interesting, isn't it? It still rings in my head after all these years. It was going through my head today, so I looked this up on google. Must be going through some other people's heads too still. I was wondering if there was more to it also, but I guess perhaps there wasn't.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On
From: Rowan
Date: 16 Jun 09 - 10:48 PM

It's not likely that the song has currency in Oz, but, during the 1930s depression, the dole was given to "susso" workers, ie, workers receiving sustenance pay. Two major projects involving susso workers were construction of "The Great Ocean Road" west along Victoria's coast west from Airey's Inlet (a great scenic drive and recently in the news when part of the Lochard Gorge pillars collapsed due to wave action; it's an extremely "high energy" coastline) and "The Boulevarde" along the Yarra River at Kew (a suburb of Melbourne); The Boulevarde used to be a favoured parking spot for courting couples when I was a lad. Alas, I had no car.

In Oz slang for the first half of the 20th C, a dollar was the alternative name for "five bob" (ie, five shillings); I'll have to do a bit of researching to find out the amount susso workers got per diem but it might have been five bob.

Cheers, Rowan


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On
From: GUEST,O'Connor
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 08:20 PM

This is an Irish folk song. I sang it as a child in school.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: GUEST,GUEST, Kelly
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 10:21 PM

I sang this song in grade school in the mid '70s. I don't recall any more verses, although it would lend itself to that. The initial "sh" scored with the x-note was indeed spoken--like shushing someone in a library, only shorter, quarter-note duration. I recall from our music book that it was a song sung by Irish workers in America. I have used it as a lullaby to all three of my daughters, who love it.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: GUEST,999
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 10:32 PM

If someone with a fast machine could Google

Full text of "The American Songbag"

the song should be there. This machine I'm on is so slow I'm still downloading yesterday's stuff.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: req: Dollar a Day Is All They Pay For Work On The Blvd
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Mar 11 - 03:15 PM

Just heard this on the CBC series Canada: A People's History, in the episode on the Depression. A lovely choral version, with viola reprise.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Dollar a Day Is All They Pay for Work..
From: GUEST,Lisa
Date: 15 Jul 17 - 07:37 PM

When I was a kid, I was told it was a lullaby.


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Dollar a Day Is All They Pay for Work..
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Jul 17 - 02:07 AM

Looking around YouTube, I found an Instrumental under the title Sh-Ta-Ra-Da-Dey Irish Lullaby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Caoz-HDHiiw

I wasn't able to find a sung version, looking particularly for a sung version with the "dollar a day" lyrics. Can anybody find it?

-Joe-


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Dollar a Day Is All They Pay for Work..
From: GUEST,cindy
Date: 15 Nov 17 - 11:08 AM

my music teacher taught us this and said it was a "sweeping song" for those who had to sweep the boulevard to keep it clean. Makes sense


Post - Top - Home - Printer Friendly - Translate
  Share Thread:
More...

Reply to Thread
Subject:  Help
From:
Preview   Automatic Linebreaks   Make a link ("blue clicky")


Mudcat time: 3 May 2:48 PM EDT

[ Home ]

All original material is copyright © 2022 by the Mudcat Café Music Foundation. All photos, music, images, etc. are copyright © by their rightful owners. Every effort is taken to attribute appropriate copyright to images, content, music, etc. We are not a copyright resource.