Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo (Paul Clayton)

Subject: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo
From: GUEST,Mike Rivers
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 09:09 PM

I don't know what made me think of this tonight, but somehow the only line from this a parody of Streets of Laredo that Paul Clayton used to sing when he ran the Sunday night folk shows at the Showboat Lounge in Washington in the early 1960s started running through my head. It's all I ever could remember. Does anyone know the whole song?

As I walked out in the streets of Toledo
As I walked out in Toledo one day
I saw an old cowpoke all wrapped in white linen
And said "Listen, Buddy, you've sure lost your way."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 09:29 PM

G'day Mike,

It's all a long way from here ... but I ask does it go with the chorus:

I could see by his outfit that he was a cowboy;
He could see by my outfit that I was a cowboy too.
We could both see by our outfits that we were both cowboys ...
Get yourself an outfit ... and be a cowboy too!

Bob Bolton (down here where a 'cowboy' means a boy, looking after the station's milking herd, because he is too young to work as a stockman ... or a superannuated stockman too old to work cattle.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo
From: GUEST,Mike Rivers
Date: 17 Jan 05 - 05:59 PM

Bob -

Sorry to be away so long. I posted that message, then the forum went down for maintenance, and I forgot about it.

No, that's a different parody, not nearly as good as Paul Clayton's.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 09:53 PM

I found a very detailed Paul Clayton discography but I don't see anything there that sounds like "Streets of Toledo." Is it possible he didn't record it?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo
From: open mike
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 02:56 AM

maybe francy and don edwards should sing this in feb in Toledo Oregon and the cowboy music show!!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo
From: GUEST,Mike Rivers
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 11:16 AM

Quite possible that Paul Clayton never recorded it commercially. I was just hoping that maybe someone had a private recording, or even better (in the folk tradition) heard him sing it and learned it directly from him or someone else.

I remember hearing him sing it several times, but nothing beyond the first verse ever stuck with me, and it just wasn't something that I wanted to learn at the time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 30 May 08 - 11:30 AM

I'm reviving this thread after a lapse of three years in hopes someone may have come upon the rest of Paul Clayton's parody "Streets of Toledo."

Note: it is not the clever, but different parody of that name written, apparently in 2005, by Airfarcewon at
http://www.amiright.com/parody/misc/johnnycashandothers0.shtml

Sure would like to find the rest of the Clayton lyric. Anyone?

Thanks, Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo
From: Escapee
Date: 30 May 08 - 02:49 PM

I sure hope somebody remembers it. Everyone here is really tired of " Saturday Night In Toledo, Ohio"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo (Paul Clayton)
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 05:56 AM

No, Paul never recorded the song, unless on a private tape.

Anyone who heard him do it in concert? Or has such a private tape and might be willing to transcribe the rest of the lyrics?

If so, my sincere thanks in advance. To come up with those lost lyrics after all these years would be a real find for Mudcat and for us all.

Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo (Paul Clayton)
From: GUEST,Terry Hewett
Date: 18 Jul 08 - 09:07 AM

Papua New Guinea parody: The Streets of Mount Hagen

As I stepped out on the streets of Mt Hagen
As I stepped out in Mt Hagen one day
I spied an old Chimbu all dressed up in arse-grass
Dressed up in arse-grass and covered with clay.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo (Paul Clayton)
From: GUEST,Mike Rivers
Date: 19 Aug 08 - 09:43 AM

My, gosh, I'm honored to have this tread revived. Odd that nobody remembers it, but I guess you just had to be around Washington at the right time (as I was) and wanting to learn the song (as I wasn't, at the time).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo (Paul Clayton)
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 27 May 09 - 11:08 AM

refresh, in hopes ...

Somebody, anybody ... did you hear Paul Clayton sing "Streets of Toledo?" Can you cite any verses, any lines at all?

Bob

Subject: Lyr Add: STREETS OF TOLEDO (Paul Clayton)
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 06:01 PM

By something not far short of a miracle, here it is. Transcribed from a Paul Clayton performance during a 1961 or '62 gig recorded at the Cafe Yana, Boston, MA.

Can't tell you how happy I am to solve this mystery and restore this lost classic. Mike Rivers, if you're still around from six years ago—enjoy.

Bob

STREETS OF TOLEDO

As I strolled out in the streets of Toledo,
As I strolled out in Toledo one day,
I spied a poor cowboy, all there on his stretcher,
And I says to him, buddy, you've sure lost your way.

Why, the last time I seen you was down in Laredo,
And you weren't lookin' well then, you ain't much improved,
Why did you wander so far on your stretcher?
Pray tell me why you ever did move?

If the weather was bad way down in Laredo,
Why didn't you go to Miami instead?
And if you're goin' in f'r all this long-distance travelin',
Why didn't you go in a hospital bed?

It was not the weather that caused me to travel,
This poor dyin' cowboy looked at me and said,
'Twas all of them fifes and them slow drums a-beatin',
[They] all gave me a pain in my head.

There was sixteen gamblers all leapin' an' jumpin',
Six pretty maidens all singin' a song,
'Twas worse than the Twelve Days of Christmas rolled together,
I picked up my stretcher and dragged it along.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo (Paul Clayton)
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 07:39 PM

Interesting to see Miami make an appearance in the Clayton song, in view of Allan Sherman's parody, The Streets Of Miami, http://dmdb.org/lyrics/sherman.folksinger.html#5

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo (Paul Clayton)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 07:50 AM

Bob-

It's certainly nice to have this old thread tidied up. Maybe I'll learn this song for the parody workshop at Getaway this year.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo (Paul Clayton)
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 07:54 AM

Yeah - good to see this one survive!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo (Paul Clayton)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 11:35 PM

Paul never recorded the song I got from him in Chicago--at the Gate Of Horn folk club --- the fine lumberjack song called The Shanty-boy On he Big Eau Claire. (I did put it on an album for Kicking Mule Records -- KM-148--Songs Of The Heartland.)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Streets of Toledo (Paul Clayton)
From: GUEST,Mike Rivers
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 06:24 PM

Bless your heart, Bob, for digging up those lyrics. If you're still playing out, I hope you sneak it in some time and maybe 50 years from now, someone will ask "Does anyone remember that parody of Streets of Laredo that Bob Coltman used to sing?" ;)

Paul Clayton had a short life and a long collection of songs. There wasn't the proliferation of portable recorders back then (the compact cassette didn't come along until 1963) so much of his material went unrecorded.