Stevensville Blues

As sung by Bill Jackson in Arvin, California 1941Voices from the Dust Bowl

STEVENSVILLE BLUES

My name is old Bill Stryker
I was not raised in town
For nineteen years and over
I rambled this world round
Ate corn-bread and molasses
Slept on a naked hill
Didn't know what sufferin' was
Till I came to Stevensville.

Landed there December
Nineteen and seventeen
Landed on Clear Boggy
That good old runnin' stream
Down came a walking skeleton
A-clamberin' down the hill
And he asked me into his hotel
The best in Stevensville.

I was to rise next morning
To catch an early train
Says, "Young man, you'd better stay,
We have some land to drain
Give you a dollar and a half a day,
Pay board and washing bills
You'll find yourself a different kid
When you leave old Stevensville."

He fed me on corn dodgers
As hard as any rock
Till my teeth began to loosen
My knees began to knock
I got so poor and skinny
I couldn't climb a hill
Indeed, I was a different kid
When I left Stevensville.

They fill my heart with pity
As I roam up and down the brook
To see them old Stevensville boys
With turtles on their hook
Them being scarcely able
To drag 'em up the hill
To help support the tables
In the homes of Stevensville.

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If you want to know him
C. T. Walls is his name
Down in his boots
He's tall as any crane
His hair hangs down in rat-tails
His clothes he doesn't fill
He is the best one
Of the gents of Stevensville.

Goodbye to the old swamp angels
The cane-brakes and the hills
Goodbye to Mr. Walls
The boss of Stevensville
If ever I see that place again
I says to S. M. Dill
It'll be through a mighty telescope
Far off from Stevensville.