Lyr Req: I built the rocky mountains

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I built the rocky mountains
From: GUEST,bert
Date: 15 Nov 09 - 02:19 PM

No I learned that version from an album years ago. I can't remember the artist.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I built the rocky mountains
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 10:58 PM

Bert, I've not got access to my copy of "Come A-Singing!". Is the set above from that book?

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I built the rocky mountains
From: GUEST,bert
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 06:44 PM

The day I well remember when Columbus landed here
Me and forty Red Men were right there at the pier.
He asked my why my Indians wore feathers in their hair
"Why that's to keep their trousers up and this I do declare."

'Twas I who built the Rockies up and placed them where they are
Sold whiskey to the Indians from behind my little bar.
'Twas I who built Niagara Falls and first discovered beer
And that was many years before Columbus landed here.

He asked me where he had to go to catch that China train.
It was clear the poor old coot had China on the brain.
I said no train for China, leaves from here today
but you'll find my Chinese laundry men not half a block away

'Twas I who...

He noticed among my Indians that some had skins quite fair
and asked if any white man had been before somewhere.
I told him "you must realize I've been here quite some time
and since they cannot be yours, they no doubt are mine."

'Twas I who...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I built the rocky mountains
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 05:38 PM

Phil Thomas collected a set from Dr. Doug Leechman, learned in the Nicola Valley in BC in 1908, with a chorus of:

For I built the Rocky Mountains and I placed them where they are
Sold whisky to the Indians behind my little bar
'Twas I who built Niagara Falls and first discovered beer
And that was long before Columbus landed over here. (PJT341)

Leechman worked over the years with Marius Barbeau, and I believe Barbeau printed a set in Come A Singing! (1947), which, again I believe, he got from Leechman, but I think he changed it.

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I built the rocky mountains
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 10:57 PM

These 2 verses are quoted by Wallace Stegner in his novel "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), page 207:

Oh, I dug Snoqualmie River
And Lake Samamish too,
And paddled down to Kirkland
In a little birch canoe.

I built the Rocky Mountains
And placed them where they are,
Sold whiskey to the Indians
From behind a little bar.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: I built the rocky mountains
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Mar 00 - 04:20 AM

Hi, Ron - I think it may be a variation of Just the Facts (click here) Sound right to you?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: I built the rocky mountains
From: tremodt
Date: 09 Mar 00 - 04:11 AM

again I ask for help My dear old grandfather sang a song that went sort of

I built the rocky mountains I placed them where they are sold whiskey to the indians from my moter car does any one have the real words to this

Thanks again Ron