Lyr Add: Songs of Haywire Mack / Harry McClintock

Subject: RE: Haywire Mac Songs
From: Mark Ross
Date: 28 May 02 - 09:57 PM

That is a Haywire MAc tune FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW from is last commercial recording session in '31. It's been reissued on a CD(?), on Rounder I think, called RICH MAN POOR MAN.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Haywire Mac Songs
From: Deckman
Date: 28 May 02 - 11:52 PM

Jon ... vaguely familiar! I'll do some digging. Bob

Subject: Lyr Add: FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW (Harry McClintock)
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 22 Jun 08 - 08:47 PM

Found it! Harvester elves, here is

FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW
By "Mac" Harry McClintock and Sterling Sherwin, 1931


Now over there in Europe they're having lots of fun
Their taxes and their big war debts have got them on the run
We have to lend them money, just to keep them on their feet
While a million good Americans are sleeping in the street
Our international bankers are busy night and day
They're figuring all the ways and means to give our dough away
Our working men are unemployed; they're raising quite a row
Prosperity's around the corner, fifty years from now.

Chorus
Fifty years from now, fifty years from now
Just tell the grocery man you'll pay him fifty years from now
When the landlord and the gasman come with both hands full of bills
Just point towards the west and say there's gold in them thar hills.
And fifty years from now, fifty years from now
We will find a way to pay our bills somehow
Oh, the situation's funny, we've lent Europe all our money
And they won't be able to pay to back till fifty years from now.

Our domestic situation is certainly hard to beat
We have to go round hungry 'cause we've raised too much to eat
We cannot ride our railroads 'cause we haven't got the fare
And we've piled up stacks of clothing till we've nothing much to wear.
They'll throw you in the hoosegow if you steal a loaf of bread
But the gangsters fill our cities full of powder smoke and lead.
We'd like to find the answer, but it seems we don't know how.
We probably come out all right in fifty years from now.

Chorus II
Fifty years from now, fifty years from now
Oh everything will be so lovely fifty years from now.
In the meantime all you have to do is stand around and grin
And do your starving gracefully or the cops will run you in.
It's really quite the style to take it with a smile
It's supposed to help a hungry man somehow.
Though it's hard on some beginners when they do without their dinners
Just think of their nice trim waistlines in fifty years from now.

And now the Europeans will not starve any more
And so to die off quickly they are spoiling for a war.
Their building warships daily and their getting trim and fit
And their great big standing armies never get a chance to sit.
And while they're getting warlike our country fights for peace
While gangsters, yeggs and robbers are a-spanking our police.
Oh when the European nations start their war
I vow we'll grab our guns and help 'em out in fifty years from now.

Chorus III
Fifty years from now, fifty years from now
We won't remember a thing about it fifty years from now.
We'll be out in the marble orchard where the tombstones are in bloom
Underneath the daisies there is always lots of room,
And fifty years from now, fifty years from now
We'll be down where they can't reach us with a plow.
And among the saints and sinners and the losers and the winners
It won't matter a heck of a lot in fifty years from now.


I've got the sheet music around somewhere.

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Haywire Mac Songs
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Jun 08 - 11:22 PM

As far as I can tell, there are two CDs from McClintock currently available---the Folkways one and one on the BACM label. Both available from CAMSCO. Of course.

Subject: RE: Haywire Mac Songs
From: GUEST,- Dean -
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 02:49 PM

I'm looking for the lyrics to and possibly an mp3 download of Mac McClintocks version of Sweet Violets. Can someone direct me to a source?

Thanx,
- Dean -

Subject: RE: Haywire Mac Songs
From: Stringsinger
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 03:51 PM

I'm probably the only person on this thread or on Mudcat that actually met Haywire Mac
when i visited him in San Pedro, California. He was extremely likeable and a great personality. He described himself as "old railroad boomer" which meant he partook of
the privilege of hopping freights and not getting thrown off by the bulls, most of them who
he knew personally.

He had a radio show in Chicago that I used to hear.

The day I visited him, he took us to the bandshell in the park in San Pedro to hear
a Mexican Tipeca band with guitars, mandolins and plucked psaltery.

He was happily married at the time.

Subject: RE: Haywire Mac Songs
From: Deckman
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 08:19 AM

WOW ... I was surprised, and delighted, to find this thread active again. I saw the title and was interested ... imagine my surprise when I found out that I was the one who started it 8 and a half years ago. bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: ADD: Haywire Mac Songs
From: GUEST,Gerald Baker
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 11:08 PM

I used to play this record, on a wind-up Victrola, in the early 1940s. Some people I knew had parts of it memorized.

Subject: RE: ADD: Haywire Mac Songs
From: GUEST,OfficialArmonist
Date: 27 Feb 12 - 08:35 AM

"The punk rolled up his big blue eyes
And said to the jocker, `Sandy,
I've hiked and hiked and wandered, too,
But I ain't seen any candy.
I've hiked and hiked till my feet are sore,
I'll be God-damned if I hike any more,
To be buggered sore like a hobo's whore
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains."

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BUM SONG (Harry McClintock)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Feb 24 - 10:03 PM

I believe this is the song Coyote Breath quoted from, and referred to as “Shovelin’ Iron Ore” back on 28 Jan 02.


THE BUM SONG
As recorded by Harry McClintock (as “MAC”) on Victor 21343-A, 1928. [Listen at the Internet Archive.]

Come all you jolly jokers and listen while I hum
A story I'll relate to you of the great American bum.
From the east to west, the north to south, like a swarm of bees they come.
They sleep in the dirt and wear a shirt that's dirty and full of crumbs.

Oh, it's early in the morning and the dew is off the ground.
The bum arises from his nest and gazes all around.
From the boxcar and the haystack he gazes ev'rywhere.
He never turns back upon his tracks until he gets a square.

I beat my way from Frisco Bay to the rockbound coast of Maine,
To Canada and Mexico, then wandered back again.
I've met town clowns and harnessed bulls as tough as a cop could be,
And I've been in ev'ry calaboose in this land of liberty.

I've topped the spruce and worked the sluice and taken a turn at the plough.
I've searched for gold in the rain and cold and worked on a river scow.
I've dug the clam and built the dam and packed the elusive prune.
But my troubles pale when I hit the trail a-packin' my old balloon.

Oh, standing in the railroad yards a-waitin' for a train,
Waitin' for a westbound freight, but think it's all in vain.
Goin' east, they're loaded; goin' west, sealed tight.
I think we'll have to get aboard the fast express tonight.

Oh, lady, would you be kind enough to give me something to eat?
A piece of bread and butter and a ten foot slice of meat.
A piece of pie or custard to tickle me appetite,
But really I'm so hungry, I don't know where to sleep tonight.

SPOKEN:
BUM: Good morning, mum.
LADY: Good morning, bum.
BUM: I just got in.
LADY: Yes, well, you can just get out again.
BUM: But lady, I'm travellin'.
LADY: Well, keep right on travellin', Who's keepin' ya?
BUM: Honest, mum, I don't know where me next meal is comin'.
LADY: And did ya think this was an information bureau?
BUM: Lady, haven't you a bite to eat in the house?
LADY: I have that, and a six foot Irishman comin' home at five o'clock to eat it. On your way now.
BUM: All right. Goodbye, mum.
LADY: Goodbye, bum.

Oh, sleeping against the station, tra-la-la-la-la-lation,
That's our recommendation, hurrah-harree-harrum!
For we are three bums, three jolly old bums; we live like royal Turks.
We have good luck in bummin' our chuck and we never bother to work.

I met a man the other day I never had met before.
He asked me if I wanted a job shovellin' iron ore.
I asked him what the wages were and he said, "Ten cents a ton."
I said, "Old fella, go chase yourself; I'd rather be on the bum."

Oh, sleeping in the pokies, oggie-oggie-oggies,
Smokin' snipes and stogies, hurrah-harree-harrum!
For we are three bums, three jolly old bums; we live like royal Turks.
We have good luck in bummin' our chuck; God bless the man that works.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BUM SONG NO 2 (Harry McClintock)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 28 Feb 24 - 02:05 PM

And we might as well add its sequel:


THE BUM SONG, NO. 2
As recorded by Harry McClintock (as "MAC") Victor 21704, 1928. [Listen at the Internet Archive.]

Come all you jolly jokers an' listen while I hum.
I’ve got some more to tell you of the great American bum.
On the highways and the railroad tracks, you’ll find them everywhere.
They’re shootin’ snipes; they’re smokin’ pipes; they’re bummin’ for a square.

Oh, some folks like their high-class grub, with lots of service, too,
But give me a shady jungle and a can of mulligan stew.
There’s lots of sky and sunshine wherever I chance to roam,
But how are you gonna see them if you always stay at home?
Oh, travelin’ down the highway, gonna be gone so long;
If you don’t think I’m goin’, just count the days I’m gone.

Oh, once I met John Farmer; he stopped me on my way.
He says: “I’ve got some potaters, and I want them dug today.”
“I can’t dig no potaters, because I’m gettin’ fat;
Go hire the guy that planted them, ’cause he knows where they’re at!”
Oh, leave the work to the other guys, to honest workin’ men,
But I don’t want to dig no spuds; I’m on the bum again.

While I was sleeping in the shade, to pass the time away,
A man came up and asked me to help him pitch some hay.
He said his land was rollin’; I said: "Now, if that’s true,
Just roll it here to this shady spot, and I’ll see what I can do!”
Oh, sleeping among the daisies after hikin’ all the day,
Some folks like a feather bed, but give me the new-mown hay.

SPOKEN:
BUM: Good mornin’, mum.
LADY: Good mornin’, bum.
BUM: I was just passin’ by.
LADY: Well, why didn’t you keep on passin’ by?
BUM: I walked twenty miles without a bite to eat.
LADY: Well, walk twenty more and hang up a record(?).
BUM: But listen, lady: my wife hasn’t seen my face in ten years.
LADY: Did you ever try gettin’ a shave?
BUM: Well, mum, I have a button here: could you sew a shirt on it for me?
LADY: Where’s that broom? Out o’ here! On yer way!
BUM: I—I’m goin’; goodbye, mum.
LADY: Goodbye, bum.

Oh, my clothes are gettin’ ragged; my shoes are gettin’ thin.
But what do I care? I get the air; I’m on the bum again.
The weather’s gettin’ chilly and soon we’ll all be froze.
I’ve got to go to a sunny state where the weather fits me clothes.

Oh, waitin’ at the water-tank for a freight train passin’ by,
And if she doesn’t stop here, I’ll catch her on the fly.
I hear a whistle blowin’ and yonder comes a train.
I’ll see you in California; I’m on the bum again!