PO' BOY

1 My mammy's in the cold, cold ground;
My daddy went away;
My sister married a gamblin' man;
And now I've gone astray.
I sit here in the prison;
I do the best I can;
But I get to thinkin' of the woman I love;
She ran away with another man.

Chorus: She ran away with another man, po' boy,
She ran away with another man.
I get to thinkin' of the woman I love;
She ran away with another man.

2 Away out on the prairie,
I stopped that Katy train;
I took the mail from the baggage car;
And walked away in the rain.
They got the bloodhounds on me,
And chased me up a tree;
And then they said, " Come down, my boy,
And go to the penitentiaree."

Chorus: She ran away with another man, po' boy, etc.

3 "Oh, mister judge, oh, mister judge,
What are you going to do to me? "
" If the jury finds you guilty, my boy,
I'm going to send you to the penitentiaree."
They took me to the railroad station;
A train came rolling by;
I looked in the window, saw the woman I love;
Hung down my head and cried.

Chorus: Hung down my head in shame, po' boy,
Hung down my head and cried;
I looked in the window, saw the woman I love,
Hung down my head and cried, po' boy!

Collected by Carl Sandburg in The American Songbag, 1927, Harcourt Brace & co, pp. 30-33.

Notes on pg. 30:

Po' Boy is a jail song in Oklahoma and Texas. It is also heard among post-graduates from jail in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. We are left to infer that if the "po' boy" had made a safe getaway after taking a bag of mail from the baggage car, the woman in the case would not have run away with another man but would have stayed with him to enjoy the loot. The lilt of the song is almost gay throughout except for the steady beat of the mournful, melodious vocables of "po' boy." The "Katy" train is a reference to the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, or "K.T." railway. Of course, though this is a jail song, it is sung by many who are free and "outside."
Arr. L. R. G.

About L.R.G.
From the Songbag front matter, pg xv, "Data concerning the composers and writers of musical settings, harmonizations, and accompaniments" - the notes were made by Lillian Rosedale Goodman (Mrs. Mark Goodman) --Born, Mitchell, S.D. Graduate Institute of Musicial Art, New York. Studied in Europe under Buzzi-Peccia. (truncated).

MD