The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #8265   Message #50910
Posted By:
25-Dec-98 - 10:30 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Portland County Jail (from Carl Sandburg)
Subject: RE: I'm a stranger in your city-Patty Flyn
God bless you, art Theime. I have been looking for the words for 60 years or so. First learned it in 1935 with out the first verse, but just picked it up last week from a friend. Thought you had the wrong song till I saw the line with "roaches and the bedbugs." Here is what I knew:

I was standing on the corner not doing any harm
Along comes a copper and takes me by the arm
He takes me round the corner and rings a little bell
Along comes the ding-dong going like hell

Six o'clock in the morning I looked upon the wall
The roaches and the bedbugs were having a game of ball
The score was seven to nothing and the roaches were ahead
When the bedbugs hit a home run that knocked me out of bed

Seven o'clock in the morning the jailer comes around
And gives you bread and butter that weighs half a pound
The coffee's like tobacco juice the bread is hard and stale
And that's the way they treat the bums at the Whalley Ave. Jail

The fact that Whalley Ave. Jail is in New Haven, CT. Could make it possible that the song is from Portland, me rather than Portland, or

Thanks again you made my day
Allan S