Origins/lyr add: Mr Brown Here I Come

Subject: Origins/lyr add: Mr Brown Here I Come
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 17 Oct 07 - 09:20 AM

Gus Meade, in his excellent "Country Music Sources," researched the background of nearly every "old time" Southern song recorded during the 1920s and 30s. But there are a few he doesn't cover, perhaps because he could find no history on them. The following is an example.

"Mr. Brown Here I Come," apparently a hobo song, was sung by Fletcher and Foster in 1928. Gwen Foster is known today as an early member of the Carolina Tar Heels, but he was a mystery even to his fellow musicians. His date and place of birth aren't known, but he's assumed to be a North Carolinian, perhaps from around Dallas NC. In 1926 he paired with fellow North Carolinian mill worker David O. Fletcher of Belmont for a series of recordings as the Carolina Twins. All their songs were unusual, none more than this. It's uncertain whether it was originally Foster's or Fletcher's song. After about 1930, when he was working at a mill in South Gastonia, Gwen Foster seems to vanish from known history.
(Info from Archie Green's notes to "The Carolina Tar Heels," Folk-Legacy FSA-24.)

The"sometimes I'm in the country" verse is related to, and apparently the first appearance of, the familiar verse in Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene." ("The Irene verse, with its "jump into the river and drown," may be a parody of it.) That's the only point of contact with other songs I know of. It is not related to the minstrel song "'Twill Never Do to Give It Up So, Mr. Brown," or to any of the other three or four songs mentioning "Mr. Brown" (two of them from England) that I'm aware of.

This is a peculiar song, sung slowly, darkly, in a sort of impish tone. Anybody know anything about its history or related lyrics?

MR. BROWN HERE I COME

Recorded by Fletcher and Foster, Atlanta, GA, Nov. 3 1928, issued as Victor 40098

Mr. Brown, here I come,
I want to learn to be a bum.

Cho: (brief yodel)

At writing poetry I'm not much,
But I can lie to beat the Dutch.

Sometimes I'm in the country, sometimes in town,
Sometimes I take a notion to ramble this wide world around.

Here lies the remainants of po' black Jim,
Was tired of beating trains and his chance was slim.

He thought sometimes that he'd make the grade,
And his tire blew out, and now he is dead.