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Subject: Origins: I never changed my fancy shirt From: Abby Sale Date: 16 May 03 - 11:37 PM I find the following two verses from a "ribald song" sung by a teamster in a wagon train on the California Trail, c.1949. It is quoted in Forty-Niners by Archer Butler Hulbert (Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1931), p. 25. This is a real but composit "diary" of the way west. I never changed my fancy shirt, The one I wore away, Until it got so rotten I finally had to say: Farewell old standin' collar In all your pride o' starch, I've worn you from December To the Seventeenth o' March. No matter whether rich or poor, I'm happy as a clam; I wish my friends could look And see me as I am. With woolen shirt and rubber boots In sand up to me knees; And lice as big as Chili beans A-fightin' with the fleas. That's all I have about the song. Would any have any more info? |
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Subject: RE: Origins: I never changed my fancy shirt From: Joe Offer Date: 08 May 04 - 10:56 PM It would be nice to find this one. I checked Silber's Songs of the Great American West and Lingenfelter/Dwyer, with no luck. Of course, if this isn't the first two verses, we're lost. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Origins: I never changed my fancy shirt From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 May 04 - 01:59 PM Several important songbooks of the 'California Days' seem never to have been reprinted, and are not on line. Only parts of the content have been printed in Lingenfelter, etc. etc. The verses look like the sort of material found in books like these. Two of these are John A. Stone's Put's Original Californa Songster, 4th ed, 1868, and his Pacific Songbook of 1861. Both are about 64 pp. Joe, I recommend them to you for purchase. Only about $300 a copy in readable condition. You could bill Mudcat..... |
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Subject: ADD: The Happy Miner From: Jim Dixon Date: 29 Sep 07 - 09:19 AM I found a song which contains the second verse you quoted. It's from "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads" collected by John A. Lomax, the text of which can be seen at Project Gutenberg. THE HAPPY MINER I'm a happy miner. I love to sing and dance. I wonder what my love would say If she could see my pants With canvas patches on my knees and one upon the stern? I'll wear them when I'm digging here and home when I return. CHORUS: So I get in a jovial way, I spend my money free. And I've got plenty! Will you drink lager beer with me? She writes about her poodle dog; but never thinks to say, "Oh, do come home, my honey dear! I'm pining all away." I'll write her half a letter, then give the ink a tip. If that don't bring her to her milk, I'll coolly let her rip. They wish to know if I can cook and what I have to eat, And tell me should I take a cold, be sure and soak my feet. But when they talk of cooking, I'm mighty hard to beat. I've made ten thousand loaves of bread the devil couldn't eat. I like a lazy partner so I can take my ease, Lay down and talk of golden home, as happy as you please; Without a thing to eat or drink, away from care and grief. I'm fat and sassy, ragged, too, and tough as Spanish beef. No matter whether rich or poor, I'm happy as a clam. I wish my friends at home could look and see me as I am. With woolen shirt and rubber boots, in mud up to my knees, And lice as large as chili beans fighting with the fleas. I'll mine for half an ounce a day, perhaps a little less, But when it comes to China pay, I cannot stand the press. Like thousands there, I'll make a pile, if I make one at all, About the time the allied forces take Sebastopol.
-Joe Offer- |
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Subject: ADD Verses: The Happy Miner From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 29 Sep 07 - 01:02 PM The lyrics posted by Jim Dixon leave out verses five and six: The dark-eyed señoritas are very fond of me, You ought to see us throw ourselves when we get on a spree; We are as saucy as a clipper ship dashing round the Horn; Head and tail up, like a steer rushing through the corn. I've never changed my fancy shirt, the one I wore away, Until it got so rotten I finally had to say: "Farewell, old standing collar, in all thy pride of starch. I've worn thee from December till the seventeenth day of March." p. 383-384, John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, 1938, "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads," Revised and Enlarged, The Macmillan Co., NY. No information provided. Probably from one of the California Songsters. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: I never changed my fancy shirt From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 29 Sep 07 - 01:19 PM Hmmm, my next post got lost. The song is from "Put's Golden Songster," pp. 43-46, copyright 1858, by John A. Stone [Put], D. E. Appleton & Co., San Francisco. Air- "I Get in a Weaving Way." A companion piece is "The Unhappy Miner," same volume, pp. 36-39, air- "Old Dog Tray." |
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Subject: Lyr. Add: The Unhappy Miner From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 29 Sep 07 - 01:55 PM THE UNHAPPY MINER Air- Old Dog Tray My happy days are past, The mines have failed at last, The cañons and gulches no longer will pay, There's nothin left for me, I'll never, never see My happy, happy home far away. Chorus: Oh, happy home, now where art thou, Friends that were kind and sincere? Alas, I do not know, my heart is full of woe, Thinking of loved ones so dear. I mine from break of day, But cannot make it pay, Disheartened return to my cabin at night, Where rattlesnakes crawl round My bed made on the ground, And coiling up, lay ready to bite. Chorus My poor old leaky hump Is always cold and damp; My blanket is covered with something that crawls, My bread will never rise, My coffee-pot capsize, I'd rather live inside of prison walls. Chorus My boots are full of holes, Like merchants, have no soles; My hands, once so soft, are harder than stone; My pants and woolen shirt Are only rags and dirt; And must I live and die here alone? Chorus I know how miners feel When pigs begin to squeal, Or hens on their roosts to cackle and squall; It makes by blood run cond To think it's all for gold, And often wish that Gabriel would call! Chorus It's "Starve or pay the dust," For merchants will not trust, And then in the summer the diggings are dry; Of course then I am broke, Swelled up by poison oak; It's even so, I really would not lie. Chorus I've lived on pork and beans, Through all those trying scenes,, So long I dare not look a hog in the face; And often do I dream Of custard pies and cream; But really it is a quien sabe case. Chorus If I were home again, To see green fields of grain, And all kinds of fruit hanging ripe on the trees; I there would live and die, The gold mines bid good-by- Forever free from bed-bugs and fleas. Chorus Pp. 36-38, John A. Stone, 1858, "Put's Golden Songster." D. E. Appleton & Co., San Francisco. UMI facsimile reprint, 2004. Song reprinted in Dwyer-Lingenfelter. |
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Subject: ADD: The Happy Miner (proposed DT entry) From: Joe Offer Date: 29 Sep 07 - 02:36 PM Hmmmm. I can't figure out from the link Jim posted, which edition of Cowboy Songs is at Project Gutenberg. My 1916 edition has exactly the lyrics Jim posted. Q, in your 1938 book, are all eight verses included as I've posted them below? Are they in the same order? Q, do you have the original Put's Golden Songster, or any book other than Lomax that prints the song complete? Any chance we could find the tune? Here are the eight verses I found in Lingenfelter-Dwyer, along with notes compiled from the posts from Jim and Q. Note that there are slight differences in wording. I would guess that Lingenfelter and Dwyer would be an exact transcription of Put, and that Lomax may have been a little less accurate. -Joe- THE HAPPY MINER (John A. Stone) I am a happy miner, I love to sing and dance; I wonder what my love would say, if she could see my pants With canvas patches on the knees, and one upon the stern; I'll wear them when I'm digging here, and home when I return. CHORUS: So I get in a jovial way, I spend my money free, And I've got plenty, will you drink lager beer with me? She writes about her poodle dog, but never thinks to say, "O, do come home, my honey dear, I'm pining all away." I'll write her half a letter, then give the ink a tip; If that don't bring her to her milk, I'll coolly "let her rip." They wish to know if I can cook, and what I have to eat; And tell me should I take a cold be sure and soak my feet; But when they talk of cooking, I'm mighty hard to beat - I've made ten thousand loaves of bread the devil could not eat. I like a lazy partner, so I can take my ease, Lay down and talk of going home, as happy as you please; Without a thing to eat or drink, away from care and grief. I'm fat and saucy, ragged too, and tough as Spanish beef. The dark-eyed senoritas are very fond of me; You ought to see us throw ourselves when we get on a spree; We are as saucy as a clipper ship dashing round the Horn, Head and tail up like a steer rushing through the corn. I never changed my fancy shirt, the one I wore away, Until it got so rotten I finally had to say, "Farewell, old standing collar, in all thy pride of starch, I've worn thee from December till the seventeenth of March." No matter whether rich or poor, I'm happy as a clam; I wish my friends at home could look and see me as I am, With woolen shirt and rubber boots, in mud up to my knees, And lice as large as Chili beans fighting with the fleas. I'll mine for half an ounce a day, perhaps a little less, But when it comes to China pay, I cannot stand the press; Like thousands there, I'll make a pile, if I make one at all, About the time the allied forces take Sebastopol. tune- "I Get in a Weaving Way." source: p. 135, Songs of the American West, Richard E. Lingenfelter and Richard A. Dwyer, University of California Press, 1968. The song is from "Put's Golden Songster," pp. 43-46, copyright 1858, by John A. Stone [Put], D. E. Appleton & Co., San Francisco. A companion piece is "The Unhappy Miner," same volume, pp. 36-39, air- "Old Dog Tray." "Happy Miner is also in p. 383-384, John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, 1938, "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads," Revised and Enlarged, The Macmillan Co., NY. |
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Subject: RE: ADD: Happy Miner/Unhappy Miner (Old Put) From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 29 Sep 07 - 03:43 PM Old Dog Tray is a Stephen Foster song, you can find the music at Levy: Old Dog Tray Mick
joe@mudcat.org |
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Subject: RE: ADD: Happy Miner/Unhappy Miner (Old Put) From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 29 Sep 07 - 04:24 PM Joe, I have "Put's Golden Songster" in a facsimile; the air cited as "I get in a weaving way," but no score. The words you post are correct, less a semicolon or two and the tilde in señorita. Dwyer and Lingenfelter, "The Songs of the Gold Rush," 1965, Univ. California Press, p. 87, give the correct eight verses. The song is reproduced in Lingenfelter and Dwyer, 1968, "Songs of the American west," p. 135, again without music. The two verses I added to the post by Dixon were from Lomax and Lomax, 1938, title as cited. I looked in John A. Lomax, 1925 printing, "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, and found it on pp. 409-410, no notes. I do not have the 1910 or 1916 printings, but biblios. indicate that it was added in the revision of 1916. I haven't found the tune. |
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Subject: RE: ADD: Happy Miner/Unhappy Miner (Old Put) From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 29 Sep 07 - 04:34 PM Joe - I've downloaded the pages for Old Dog Tray. I'll put up the abc when I've a bit of time - tomorrow probably. Mick |
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Subject: RE: ADD: Happy Miner/Unhappy Miner (Old Put) From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 29 Sep 07 - 04:44 PM Found by googling "I get in a weaving way." Chapman Family Papers, 1848-1881, mention "I get in a weaving way" as a song sent to William Chapman in the army (Civil War) by James Chapman, and "said to be a Negro tune." Another sent at the same time was "Things I Don't Like to See." So far no luck. Not in Traditional Ballad Index, American Memory, Levy or Bodleian under that title. |
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Subject: RE: ADD: Happy Miner/Unhappy Miner (Old Put) From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 29 Sep 07 - 04:53 PM The Messengers played "Weaving Way" in the 1992 cd "The Arkansas Traveler," Mercury, # 12. See Michelle Shocked. May be the same tune. |
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Subject: RE: ADD: Happy Miner/Unhappy Miner (Old Put) From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 29 Sep 07 - 05:47 PM I've looked for "I Get In A Weaving Way" without success in a number of collections (Oxford OLIS, Australian Nat Lib, Californian Sheet Music Project, Duke, Plymouth Library Services, Southern Folklife at UNC and a few others). I did find the following reference to the Happy Miner at Utah State in a collection of songs collected by anthropology students as part of their studies. This might suggest there is a tune there: Fife Folklore Archives - Group 5 - Songs Mick |
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Subject: Michelle Shocked - Weaving Way From: Joe Offer Date: 29 Sep 07 - 06:15 PM I don't really see a reason to connect Michelle Schocked's Weaving Way with the tune we need. It's on the Arkansas Traveler album, which is a good one (and apparently expanded in the current reisssue). -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: ADD: Happy Miner/Unhappy Miner (Old Put) From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 29 Sep 07 - 07:15 PM The Roud Index has The Happy Miner as #4351. As well as Lomax's Cowboy Songs (1919, 1934, 1938) he gives 2 entries under the title of Gatineau Girls collected in Quebec by Edith Fowke and published in Lumbering Songs from the Northern Woods and 2 entries under the title The Jolly Shanty Boy published by Earl Clifton Beck in They Knew Paul Bunyan and Songs of the Michigan Lumberjacks(1941). Without seeing the tunes, it's hard to tell if these others use the same tune as The Happy Miner, but if anyone has access to them it might be worth a look. There are references to both of these songs on the web, but I haven't time to follow them up just now. Mick |
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Subject: ADD: The Gatineau Girls From: Joe Offer Date: 29 Sep 07 - 07:33 PM Ah, bless you, Mick. #54, "The Gatineau Girls" Sung by O. J. Abbott Hull, Quebec April 1960 The Gatineau Girls I am a jolly shantyboy, I love to sing and dance. I wonder what my girl would say if she would see my pants. Fourteen patches on the knees and sixteen on the stern, I wear them while I'm in the woods, and home I do return. REFRAIN I'm on my jovial way, and I spend my money free. I have plenty, come and drink lager beer with me. I like the girls of the Gatineau, they are so trim and neat. They are so slim around the waist; their kisses are so sweet. There's Mary Ann and Josephine and likewise Jenny too— Along with some of the Gatineau girls I'll roam this country through. We often go on dancing—we dance all night, you see— And often all the girls they grow very fond of me. We dance all night till broad daylight, we dance until the morn— Head and tail up like a steer running through the corn. Source: Lumbering Songs from the North Woods, Edith Fowke, 1970, 1985 Fowke's notes: Though many other songs tell of "the jolly shantyboy," few are as light-hearted as this. Beck includes it as the first item in his Lore of the Lumbercamps, but his note indicates that it was recited rather than sung in Michigan. In his Cowboy Songs Lomax gives a similar text as "The Happy Miner," again without a tune. John Norman of Munising, Michigan, recorded it as "The Raving Shanty Boy" for the Library of Congress in 1938. All of these versions obviously sprang from the same source, probably a vaudeville song, but O. J. Abbott's is localized in the Canadian northwoods: the valley of the Gatineau River north of Ottawa, a famous lumbering region in the last century. His first stanza and refrain are like the other versions; the last two stanzas are quite different except for the line "Head and tail up like a steer running through the corn." He sings it to a popular square-dance tune usually known as "The Crooked Stovepipe." REFERENCES PRINTED. B. C. Beck, Lore, ii (reprinted in E. C. Beck, Bunyan, 31— 32). Lomax and Lomax, Cowboy Songs, 409—410. RECORDED. Library of Congress AFS 235 5A (John Norman). Prestige/ International 25014 (Abbott, "The Jolly Shantyboy"). TUNE RELATIVES Leach, 280. Peacock, 515. Tune available on request, but I'm too lazy to post a MIDI today and it's not the primary "Weaving" tune we're seeking. Interesting that Fowke didn't track this one back to "Old Put." -Joe- Click to play(Joe stopped being lazy) |
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Subject: ADD: The Jolly Shanty Boy From: Joe Offer Date: 29 Sep 07 - 07:48 PM The Jolly Shanty Boy I am a jolly shanty boy Who loves to sing and dance. I wonder what my girls would say If they could see my pants! With fourteen patches on the knee And six upon the stern, I'll wear them while I'm in the woods And home when I return. For I am on my jolly way, I spend my money free. I have plenty—come and drink Lager beer with me. I'll write my love a letter, I'll give the ink a tip, And if that don't fetch her up to time, I guess I'll let her slip. For I don't care for rich or poor, I'm not for strife and grief; I'm ragged, fat, and lousy, and As tough as Spanish beef. Those dark-eyed single lasses, They think a heap of me. You ought to see me throw myself When I go on a spree, Rigged up like a clipper ship Sailing round the Horn, Head and tail up like a steer Rushing through the corn. Now to conclude and finish, I hope I've offended none. I've told you of my troubles. Since the day that I begun, With patched-up clothes and rubber boots And mud up to the knees, With lice as big as chili beans Fighting with the fleas. Source: Lore of the Lumber Camps, Earl Clifton Beck, 1948 [this is a revised and enlarged edition of Beck's 1941 book, Songs of the Michigan Lumberjacks Beck's notes:
The rollicking bravado of "The Jolly Shanty Boy" was not uncommon in Bangor, Saginaw, Marinette, and Longview. Among the old-timers who recite it with evident satisfaction are Peter Mahon of Deerfield Center, John Wilson of Gladwin, Jack Kelly of Empire, and Tony Africs of Munising. In his Cowboy Songs and Frontier Ballads (ii), p. 383, John Lomax published a similar ballad called "The Happy Miner." |
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Subject: RE: ADD: Happy Miner/Unhappy Miner (Old Put) From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 02 Oct 07 - 09:25 AM I've posted the tune for Old Dog Tray from the sheet music at Levy (along with an extra verse not in the DT version) in thread Tune Add: Old Dog Tray. Mick |
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Subject: RE: ADD: Happy Miner/Unhappy Miner (Old Put) From: GUEST,Ed Swanzey Date: 10 Oct 07 - 02:43 PM If anyone here has notation or midi of "Gatineau Girls", or "Shanty Boy", I would be happy to pay you for them. Ed Swanzey, [e-mail deleted for security, available from Joe Offer] Many thanks, Ed |
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Subject: RE: ADD: Happy Miner/Unhappy Miner (Old Put) From: Joe Offer Date: 11 Oct 07 - 03:01 AM Hi, Ed. I e-mailed you a scan of the tune, and here's a MIDI for "Gatineau Girls": Click to playBeck says there's no tune for "Shanty Boy" because it was a recitation. -Joe Offer- |
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