Lyr/Chords Add: The Little Stream of Whiskey

Subject: [little stream of whiskey]
From:
Date: 19 Mar 97 - 10:23 PM

Big Rock Candy Mountains

Subject: RE: [little stream of whiskey]
From: Ralph Butts
Date: 20 Mar 97 - 07:21 AM

A couple of versions in the DT....Tiger

Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: THE LITTLE STREAM OF WHISKEY
From: Gene Graham
Date: 24 Mar 97 - 03:47 AM

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

Subject: RE: [little stream of whiskey]
From:
Date: 24 Mar 97 - 12:56 PM

Received the words--they're what I was looking for. I have an old 78 out in my barn somewhere with this song on it--never could understand more than a few of the words--I don't know if it was your Doc Watson or not--as I recall it had probably two men singing with guitar and fiddle, and has "A Short Life of Trouble" on the other side.

I'm curious about the evolution of the song. It sounds, in maqny ways, more "authentic" than "Big Rock Candy Mountains", is obviously related, but has a completely different tune. The 19th century parody referred to is I'm sure part of the story. In any event, many thanks.

Subject: RE: [little stream of whiskey]
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Mar 97 - 12:58 PM

There are a mess of parodies of Bingen on the Rhine (including the Civil War "Bacon on the Rhine). Oddly, I've never seen the original. Dows anyone out there have it?

Subject: RE: [little stream of whiskey]
From: Gene Graham
Date: 24 Mar 97 - 02:01 PM

To: dgburt.....you're right about the tune...it reminds me more of WHEN THE WORKS ALL DONE THIS FALL than BRCMt...This version has some mighty find pickin by Doc and Merle...guitar and harp. - Gene

Subject: RE: [little stream of whiskey]
From: bob schwarer
Date: 24 Mar 97 - 06:30 PM

Norman Blake has a good version of this. Look for Norman & Nancy Blake "Blind Dog"

Bob S.

Subject: RE: [little stream of whiskey]
From: belter
Date: 26 Mar 97 - 10:16 AM

The other night I was at a sca party where a historian was talking about his resarch into an order of monks called the vegans from wich the term vegabon seams to have come. They would travel about going from one monistary to the next, suporting them selves between monistarys by entertaining in pubs, teaching things they learned at the monistaries like latin, medicen, art, what ever, and living off the land. They developed quite bad reputation, singing bawdy songs, telling off collor jokes, and nocking up form girls along there way and were evensally striped of clerical status and later excomunicated. According to this guy, the story of the big rock candy mountan is desended from one of the vegan ledgeneds about one of their saints which I got the impresion, may have evolved for the benifit of their audiance whom they would need to please for the sake of getting handouts.

I'll see if I can get ahold of this guy and have him fill in the gaps or correct any fallacys I may have created in my retelling of a story I really didn't know to begin with.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Add: The Little Stream of Whiskey
From: GUEST,Patrice
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 01:42 AM

Hi, all

For me, "little frenchie" (living into the Loire Valley), discover this forum is a great joyce.
I purchase my first vinyl in 77: Memories. An from this time I don't understand well what Doc sings.
I think I'll come here sometime... Tons to learn.

Regards,

Patrice

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Add: The Little Stream of Whiskey
From: kendall
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 11:56 AM

I heard this from Norman Blake and it made me sit right down and learn to pick it. Thanks, Norman.

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Add: The Little Stream of Whiskey
From: Mark Ross
Date: 24 Jan 12 - 12:19 PM

I learned a variant from Utah Phillips called THE DYING HOBO (which you can find online in THE HOBO'S HORNBOOK by George Milburn) that ends with "His partner stole his hat and coat and hopped the eastbound train."
Also, Utah's variant, which he learned on a surveying crew back in the fifies, uses a different tune, "I AM A UTAH MAN SIR". That tune is somewhat pedestrian, I thought, so I use the same tune as LITTLE STREAM OF WHISKEY.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Add: The Little Stream of Whiskey
From: GUEST,Peter S. Shenkin
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 07:44 PM

Meade, Spottswood and Meade give Kelly Harrell's "The Dying Hobo" as the first U.S. recording and Burnett & Rutherford's "Little Stream of Whiskey" as the second. Both were recorded in 1926.

These two are really quite different songs. They share a hobo dying, but beyond that differ in tune as well as in lyrics. The Harrell song is full of folk lyrics (like, "sewing her silks so fine", "there's more young men than George", "see that dove in yonders grove, flying from pine to pine, it's mourning for it's own true love just like I mourn for mine", etc.). The song focuses on the mourning of hte girlfriend in a distant town, but there is no mention of a partner or anyone else present at the death, and there is no focus on the tragedy of the death, just the tragedy of the girl's mourning over the death. The fact that he's a hobo seems rather irrelevant.

The Burnett and Rutherford tune (which contains most of the verses that Doc Watson and others later sang) is all about the dying hobo and his last words to his "partner hobo" about going to the place where he "will not have to work at all", and where "a little stream of whiskey is flowing from the rocks". Though he leaves word for his "girl in Danville, not to worry at all", that is the only mention of anyone remote from the death scene, and it is a mighty scant mention. This song has a few lyrics in common with Jimmie Rodgers' "Hobo Bill's Last Ride" (attributed to Waldo O'Neal), but the latter mentions nobody else present at the scene. "Little Stream" is also related to the "Big Rock Candy Mountain" family of songs, in which the hobo describes his paradise.

I have a hard time thinking of any of these songs as parodies of "Bingen on the Rhine", a lengthy poem written by Caroline Norton in the mid 19th century, in which a soldier dying in Algiers asks his friend to send word of his death back home. I am unaware of musical settings of this poem dating back to the early days of sound recordings.

However, the phrase "Bingen on the Rhine", is quoted in Uncle Dave Macon's "All-go Hungry Hash House". But that's not really surprising, because "Hungry Hash House" originated as a popular song and "Bingen On The Rhine" was a well known poem at the time. It seems to have been used as a sentimental recitation in music-hall reviews.