There is a version of The Dying Hobo attributed to having been recorded by Doc Watson in the data base. Perhaps it was from a different recording session. The one below was transcribed from the Vanguard album DOC WATSON AND SON - VSD 79170.


THE LITTLE STREAM OF WHISKEY - (aka THE DYIN' HOBO) - Recorded by Doc Watson
CAPO: 1st Fret/KEY: Bb/PLAY: A

[A] Just a mile west of the water tank on a [D] cold November day,
In a cold and lonesome [A] boxcar a [E] dyin' hobo lay.
His [A] pal sat there before him with a [D] low and drooping head,
Listenin' to the [A] last words his [E] dyin' buddy [A] said.

Goodbye, old pardner hobo. I hate to say goodbye,
But I hear my train a-comin' and I know she's a-getting nigh.
Gonna tell that old conductor just where I want to stop:
Where the little stream of whiskey comes flowing down the rocks.

We rode the rods together. We've rambled all around.
In ev'ry kind of weather, we slept out on the ground.
Old pardner, don't you miss that train that always makes the stop
Where the little stream of whiskey comes flowing down the rocks.

Would you tell my girl in Danville that she need not to worry at all?
I'm a-goin' to that country where I won't have to work a-tall.
No, I will not have to work there, nor even change my socks,
And the little stream of whiskey comes flowing down the rocks.

I'm a-goin' to that better place where ever'thing is right,
Where the handouts grow on bushes and they sleep out ever' night.
Won't have to wash my overhalls, nor even change my socks,
And the little stream of whiskey comes flowing down the rocks.


Liner notes state that the song is a hobo parody of "Bingen on the Rhine." A mid-nineteenth century ballad by Carolyn Lady Maxwell which was set to music in England and finally passed into oral tradition in the U.S.

Source: DOC WATSON AND SON, Vanguard VSD-79170