Lyr Req: Forty Miles (Leroy Grant)

Subject: Lyr Req: Forty Miles (Leroy Grant)
From: GUEST,LorVan
Date: 04 Apr 13 - 05:36 AM

Good morning,

I'm trying to figure out the lyrics of a song that has been collected by Alan Lomax in Parchman Farm in the 1959. Here's the link to the ACE online database to hear the song and find the little known details about it:
http://research.culturalequity.org/rc-b2/get-audio-detailed-recording.do?recordingId=4098

It's an interesting song for a lot of reasons: shows connections to the early blues, sounds great, and contains lyrics that are part of long term oral traditions (the first part will appear nearly unchanged in a lot of other sources, included even a Paul Mc. Cartney's song).
As I'm italian, please forgive my english, I'm trying my best eh eh.. Here's what I've been able to figure out so far:

Early in the morning, in the morning, when the ding dong ring
oh, I go to the table (to) find same old thing
mmh

say anything about it, oh 'bout it, I have trouble at [???], oh trouble at [???]
oh, but say anything about it, I have trouble at [???]
mmh

ain't no need, oh, feelin' blue, oh, feelin' blue
oh [???] got you woman, to stay stay got you [this whole verse completely escaped my grasp to be honest]
mmh

I'll be forty mile walkin', oh walkin, 'fore you know I'm gone
oh, forty mile walkin', 'fore you know I'm gone.


Thank you for your help!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Forty Miles (Leroy Grant)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Apr 13 - 06:34 AM

Midnight Special (from memory
"Oh early in the morning hear the ding-dong ring,
Go over to the table, see the same damn thing
Knife and fork on the table, piece of paper in my hand
Say anything about it I'm in trouble with The Man."

Too easy?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Forty Miles (Leroy Grant)
From: GUEST,LorVan
Date: 04 Apr 13 - 07:57 AM

Yeah, that's most prorably the original from wich came the incipit.
Midnight special had a very long and complex story for itself ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Special_%28song%29 ), and the very fact that we meet the same incipit in yet another song from the southern prisons, I guess, shows how it became a kind of "vernacular" phrase in that context and at that time, so "proverbial" that it didn't had to be connected by meaning to the other parts of the songs.
And that's how it was used there, in the song I'd like to discuss: as a reference, a pre-made formula.

Having said that, the song Forty Miles has musically nothing in common with any of the Midnight special versions I so far came in contact with, and, except for that incipit reference, delves in completely another argument for the rest of the text eh eh

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Forty Miles (Leroy Grant)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Apr 13 - 09:02 PM

Couldn't get sound from your link.
Also tried the archive: http://pluto.lib.olemiss.edu/lomax/T883R10.mp4; also no luck.

Help! Anyone!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Forty Miles (Leroy Grant)
From: GUEST,LorVan
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 02:50 AM

This is the streaming link from which the page I linked above gets the mp3. If you cannot use the embedded music player in the first link above, by clicking on this it should let you open or save the file directly.

c0383352.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/audio/T883R10.mp3

NOTE: it's not illegal downloading, the track is free from copyrights and has already been freely shared on the Association for Cultural Equity internet page wich I linked above. This link I just posted is just another way of accessing the same page's source.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Forty Miles (Leroy Grant)
From: GUEST,LorVan
Date: 05 Apr 13 - 02:53 AM

Argh, sorry, tried the link and it is not working.
Try to copy and paste this in your browser.

c0383352.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/audio/T883R10.mp3