This song is quoted in a memoir: Lifeletter by Howard Newhard (Xulon Press, 2008), page 13:


Oh, a bum, a bum, a jolly good bum, a bum I long to be.
To heck with the men who work all day while I sleep under the tree.
A-sleeping in the icebox, tra-la-la-la-la,
We shoot the birds and the butterflies, tra-la-la-la-la-la.

I met a man the other day I never met before.
He asked me if I wanted to work a-shovelin' iron ore.
I asked him what his wages were – a dollar 'n' a half a ton.
"Oh, mister, I don't wanna work; I'd rather be a bum."

While walking a western tank line, one summer's cooling day
And in an open boxcar a dying hobo lay.
Beside him stood his partner with sad and dreary head,
And listen to the last word the dying hobo said:

"Oh, I'm going to a better land where everything is fine.
Hams grow on the bushes and it's summer all the time.
You don't have to work, not even change your socks,
And little drops of whiskey come rolling off the rocks!"


[Apparently 2 or more songs have been conflated here. The last 2 verses come from THE DYING HOBO a.k.a. THE LITTLE STREAM OF WHISKEY.]