Lyr. Add: GREER COUNTY
c. 1909

Tom Hight is my name, an old bachelor I am,
You'll find me out west in the country of fame,
You'll find me out west on an elegant plain,
And starving to death on my government claim.

Chorus:
Hurrah for Greer County!
The land of the free,
The land of the bed-bug,
Grass-hopper and flea;
I'll sing of its praises
And tell of its fame,
While starving to death
On my government claim.

My house is built of natural sod,
Its walls are erected according to hod;
Its roof has no pitch but is level and plain,
I always get wet if it happens to rain.

How happy am I on my government claim,
I've nothing to lose, and nothing to gain;
I've nothing to eat, I've nothing to wear,-
From nothing to nothing is the hardest fare.

How happy am I when I crawl into bed,-
A rattlesnake hisses a tune at my head,
A gay little centipede, all without fear,
Crawls over my pillow and into my ear.

Now all you claim holders, I hope you will stay
And chew your hard tack till you're toothless and gray;
But for myself I'll no longer remain
To starve like a dog in my government claim.

My clothes are all ragged as my language is rough,
My bread is corn dodgers, both solid and tough;
But yet I am happy, and live at my ease
On sorghum molasses, bacon and cheese.

Good-bye to Greer County where blizzards arise,
Where the sun never sinks and a flea never dies,
And the wind never ceases but always remains
Till it starves us all out on our government claims.

Farewell to Greer County, farewell to the West,
I'll travel back east to the girl I love best,
I'll travel back to texas and marry me a wife,
And quit corn bread for the rest of my life.

John A. Lomax, 1910, 1925, "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads," The Macmillan Co., pp. 278-279.
In 1938, Lomax and Lomax, pp. 407-408, added a partial score and this note: "From Tom Hight's scrapbook, Oklahoma City, OK, 1909. The "Tom Hight" of the song is the universal claim holder of early Oklahoma days."

There must be a printed source from which the variants arose. The Alberta (Canadian) variant must be post-1905, the date the province came into existence.