The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #59013   Message #945152
Posted By: GUEST,Q
02-May-03 - 05:57 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Bawdy Bar Room Song
Subject: Lyr Add: LEHIGH VALLEY (from Vance Randolph)
Randolph (Randolph edited Legman), Roll Me in Your Arms, has a few verses that supplement those in Cray and those by Abby Sale in the DT.
Version C
Recited in 1946, heard about 1910 in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

'Twas down in the Lehigh Valley,
Me an' my cousin Bill,
Pimped six years for a call-house
On top of Red-Hot Hill.

We had a girl named Nelly,
Keener than any briar,
(Nelly she had Bright's disease, an')
No man could satisfy her.

Then come a city slicker,
Smooth an' long-peckered and rich,
He gammoned our Nell to run away,
The cock-suckin' son-of-a-bitch.

Thanks for the whiskey, stranger,
I better be on my way,
I'll hunt the runt that stole our cunt
If it takes till Judgement Day.

In 1948, this stanza was collected:
It was down in the Lehigh Valley,
Me an' my people grew,
We was all pimps for a whore-house,
Yes, an' a good one, too.

Version B. Collected in 1923, heard about 1910:
Twas down in the Lehigh Valley,
Just me an' my brother Lew,
An' we was runnin' a whorehouse,
Yes, an' a damn good one, too.

Version A is just the introduction (coll. 1964):
Don't look at me that-a-way, stranger,
I didn't shit in your stew,
I just come down from the mountain,
And my balls are covered with glue.

Randolph (Legman) note that the introduction, "Don't Look At Me That Way Stranger," came later than the versions collected above. This introduction appears in 1930 in an expurgated text (Milburn, George, 1930, "The Hobo's Hornbook."