FIFTEEN CENTS AND A DOLLAR
As recorded by Ramblin' Jack Elliott, on "Ramblin' Jack Elliott in London" (2009)

CHORUS: Fifteen cents is all I got; dollar's all I crave.
Fifteen cents to buy me a drink; a dollar to dig my grave.

Well, I went down to visit my uncle the other day, an' he was showin' me all aroun' the house, you know; an' it was a big old house, too; an' he took me down the hallway, an' he slammed open a door, an' he pointed inside a room there, an' he said: "This here is a bedroom." Well, I could see it was a bedroom; it had a lot o' different kind o' beds in it. An' he pointed over to one o' them beds in the corner, an' he said: "You see that bed over yonder? It's worth a whole lot o' money. It goes back to Louie the Fourteenth." I said: "I got a bed in my house goes back to Sears Roebuck the fifteenth."

CHORUS

Well, he says: "You're gonna have to excuse me right now, 'cause I got to go outside an' cut a little stove wood, but you can look around the house for yourself." So I did; I went on down the hallway there, an' I found me a room. It was kind o' shelved away from the other rooms, like maybe they didn't want me to find it or somethin'; but I found it, an' they had the purtiest great big ol' horse-waterin' trough in there you ever did see, all enameled over, an' they had a gadget a-hangin' up on the wall. It was made out o' that white dish stuff, you know, with a pipe runnin' up to it, and a handle on top, an' you could turn this handle an' get water out, only it weren't no 'count; it had a hole in the bottom, an' all the water come a-tricklin' out. I plugged that hole up with a corncob, an' it worked just fine. But the thing I really come here tonight to tell you 'bout, neighbors, was a-settin' over there in the corner o' the room, about that high off o' the floor, I guess, an' it was the durndest thing you ever did see for washin' your feet! An' you could jerk a leever an' get clean water for the other foot, too; an' it had two lids settin' right one on top o' each other. The top lid was in purty good shape. I lifted 'er up, an' the bottom lid was plumb wore out—had a hole right through the middle of it. Well, I took them lids home, an' I made a bread board out o' the top lid, an' I framed m' picture in the bottom one.

CHORUS