Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'

Subject: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:51 PM

I've been listening to Willie Dixon's 'My Babe' and had a nagging feeling that I knew the melody from somewhere else. Then it hit me. This Train!
So which is the chicken which is the egg?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:03 PM

Just realised the answer. This Train had been recorded plenty before My Babe was written.
So never mind.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:02 PM

In 1911, Howard W. Odum printed a number of Oh, Babe, My Babe, Babe verses and songs from southern Negroes. If you are comparing late versions of 'My Babe" and "This Train," you may be right, But both have pre-WW1 antecedents.

See Odum, Howard W., 1911, "Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes, The Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 24, July-Sept. 1911, no. XCIII, pp. 255 ff.

Some of these;
"Baby, What Have I Done," with the lines:
Oh me! Oh my! Baby What have I done?
Where were you las' Saturday night
When I lay sick in my bed?
You down town wid some other ole girl,
Wasn't here to hold my head.

"Oh MY Babe, Won't You Come Home" paints the reverse picture.
Or the man demands freedom, "Where the rounders do as they please, babe!"
"Oh, babe, take a one on me," is there.
"Things Ain't the Same, Babe, Since I Went Away"
"Baby, Won't You Let Me Bring My Clothes Back Home?"
'Well I started to leave and got way down the track,
got to thinkin' 'bout my woman, come runnin' back, Oh Babe!'
Etc.

Chicken and egg, indeed.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: GUEST,Pioneer.
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 09:22 AM

Can someone please provide lyrics for "My Babe" as recorded by Little Walter, I believe, and "This Train is Bound For Glory" by Woody Guthrie?

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 09:50 AM

I think that "My Babe" in versions recorded by both Little Walter and Bo Diddley on Chess Records was a direct re-write by willie Dixon of the recording of "This Train" by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The Tharpe record came out about ten years before the Little Walter which was recorded in Jan '55. Both songs contain the line "...'fore day creepers and midnight ramblers." The song would be much older than that I'm sure. Dixon plays double bass on the Walter record. Maybe Dixon was inspired to emulate Ray Charles by Rays secular re-working of a gospel number into "I got a Woman". Interestingly, one of the 2 guitar players on Walters "My Babe" record is Robert Junior Lockwood, one time travelling companion and contemporary or Robert Johnson.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: GUEST,Pioneer.
Date: 30 Jul 05 - 01:25 PM

I see the fragments coming together before my very eyes and yet still no lyrics to ponder on why and how? these songs evolved. Fascinating information GUEST -thanks!

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 30 Jul 05 - 02:12 PM

My baby don't stand no cheatin', my babe
Oh yeah she don't stand no cheatin', my babe
Oh yeah she don't stand no cheatin',
She don't stand none of that midnight creepin'
My babe, true little baby, my babe

My babe, I know she love me, my babe
Oh yes, I know she love me, my babe
Oh yes, I know she love me,
She don't do nothin' but kiss and hug me
My babe, true little baby, my babe

My baby don't stand no cheatin', my babe
Oh no, she don't stand no cheatin', my babe
Oh no, she don't stand no cheatin',
Ev'rything she do she do so pleasin'
My babe, true little baby, my babe

My baby don't stand no foolin', my babe
Oh yeah, she don't stand no foolin', my babe
Oh yeah, she don't stand no foolin',
When she's hot there ain't no coolin'
My babe, true little baby, my babe
She's my baby (true little baby) ...

And don;t remeber the lyrics of 'This Train' but contains the lines:
This train don't carry no gamblers,
No cowpokes, no midnight ramblers, this train

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Jul 05 - 05:09 PM

Not much on "This Train (Bound for Glory)" on Mudcat. Some early recordings:
1922- Florida Normal Industrial Institute Quartet
1925- Wood's (Famous) Blind Jubilee Singers
1828- Southern Plantation Singers
1929- Biddleville Quintet.
1939- Sister Posetta Tharpe

Looking for early texts, but haven't found any.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: GUEST,Pioneer.
Date: 31 Jul 05 - 01:38 AM

Thanks Scaramouche you're a star! and Q keep up the good work.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Jul 05 - 07:38 AM

"My Train" not in "Woody Guthrie Folk Songs," 1963. Only found it on tribute albums by other singers. It was a hit for him, however.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 31 Jul 05 - 08:55 AM

Nothing to do wiyh "My baby takes the morning train" then

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Mar 21 - 03:08 PM

"This Town" by Roger Miller uses the same tune.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: GUEST,#
Date: 12 Mar 21 - 03:37 PM

Neat discography regarding 'My Babe' written (I think) by Willie Dixon for Little Walter.

http://www.deaddisc.com/songs/My_Babe.htm

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: GUEST,Jerome Clark
Date: 13 Mar 21 - 12:00 PM

In his magisterial "Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong" (1981) Norm Cohen writes (p. 630) that "This Train" was first recorded by Wood's Blind Jubilee Singers in August 1925. Between them and 1931 three other Black singing groups released their own versions. Cohen says he can find no reference to it earlier than 1925, though other vernacular songs in circulation also used the railroad as a Christian metaphor. I infer that "This Train" was composed sometime in the early decades of the last century.

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: mayomick
Date: 14 Mar 21 - 10:29 AM

Guthrie included lines from This Train in his fictionalized autobiography , Bound For Glory.
‘This train don’t carry no gamblers, liars ,cheats or big shot ramblers’

Subject: RE: Origins: 'My Babe' Meets 'This Train'
From: EBarnacle
Date: 14 Mar 21 - 11:52 PM

Just scanning the title of this thread made me think of "The Bear missed the Train," which is a parody of "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen." Is that the real object of this search?