We found this song in an old song book about 60 years ago. This is how I remember it. There may have been other verses, but these are the ones we sang. We made up our own music and sang it often. (We couldn't read music then.) I've always wondered what the tune was. If you have it, I would love to get the music.


Out by a western water tower on a cold December day,
In an open boxcar a dying hobo lay.
His partner lay beside him with a low and drooping head,
Listening to the last words the dying hobo said.

"Go tell my girl in dreamland, her face no more I'll view.
I hear that train a-comin', and I'm goin' too.
I'm goin'," said the hobo, "to a land that's fair and bright,
Where the climate is so healthy that the pigs stay out all night.

"Where handouts grow on bushes, and people never change their socks,
And little drops of whiskey, come trickling down the rocks."
His head fell back his eyes fell in as he breathed his last refrain
His partner stole his socks and shoes and caught that westbound train.