Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)

Subject: Keep on keepin' on
From: GUEST,Mike Jones
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 11:18 AM

Hi There Can anyone help with the lyrics to this song I think the author was Len Udo I learned the song in the seventies in Toronto Canada The first verse goes

While ridin' on a crowded southbound train It happened just the other day I thought I felt like I was slippin back As the train beside me slowly pulled away And all my lifelong days seems I've been on that track With everybody movin on and mr just slippin back And they don't wave goodbye and they don't look back So I guess I've gotta keep on keepin on Thanks

Subject: Lyr Add: KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON (Len Chandler)
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 08:43 AM

Mike, are these the lyrics you're after? I don't know if they are accurate, I found them after a quick search on 'Google'.

Brian

---

KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON
(Len Chandler)

While sittin' on a crowded southbound train -
It happened just the other day
I coulda sworn that I was rollin' back
As the train beside me slowly pulled away.
Well my whole lifelong it seems I've been on that track
With everybody rollin' on and me just slippin' back,
And they don't wave goodbye and they don't look back ...
So I guess I've gotta... keep on keepin' on.

Some people always say what I should do -
Now that's something they seem to know so well -
Ah, but it's what I've got to do that's on my mind,
And they never seem to listen when I tell.
But it really doesn't bother me that no one seems to care,
That the stairs are full of splinters and my tender feet are bare,
And I just can't keep from thinkin' there's trouble everywhere...
So I guess I've gotta... keep on keepin' on.

Well I know you wish my tongue would turn to stone
Or that I'd a kep' it still the other day...
I said I'd like to see you walk the sea,
And you sank just like your feet were made of clay.
But there's a mountain in the bottom of that sea we flounder in;
If we find that mountain top, we wouldn't need to swim,
If we'd found that mountain sooner, just think where we could have been...
So I guess I've gotta... keep on keepin' on.

One ship sails east, and the other sails west
While the very same breezes blow -
It's the set of the sail, and not the gale
That bids them where to go.
And like the ships of the sea is the way of our fate;
The seas are gettin' stormy and the hour's gettin' late.
If that ship starts seepin' water, you know how to bail ...
You can't change the weather but you sure can change the sail -
And a harbor looks much better when you've made it through a gale!
So I guess I've gotta... keep on keepin' on!

From the album, "To Be a Man," Len Chandler

Subject: 'Keep On Keepin On'
From:
Date: 27 Mar 02 - 07:56 PM

a friend of mine is looking for information for the poem "Keep On Keepin' On". and thinking it's a folk song he has turned to me..... well I've never heard of it, but find it dating back (sans author) to 1942, he's already traced it back to a New Orleans newspaper in 1903... was it ever a song? anybody know anything about it?

"just grit your teet and keep on keepin' on"

steven rowe

Subject: RE: 'Keep On Keepin On'
From: Big Tim
Date: 28 Mar 02 - 12:20 PM

Not much help with your query but Dylan uses the phrase in "Tangled Up In Blue". I wonder if he got it from the poem or if it's just coincidence?

Subject: RE: 'Keep On Keepin On'
From: Mark Ross
Date: 28 Mar 02 - 01:09 PM

It was a song by Len Chandler, circa mid '60's. Anybody know where Len is these days? I've lost track of him.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: 'Keep On Keepin On'
From: okthen
Date: 28 Mar 02 - 02:03 PM

The first time I came across it was in "Fabulous Furry Freak brothers" I think that was in the sixties......not sure......can't remember

Subject: RE: 'Keep On Keepin On'
From: fat B****rd
Date: 28 Mar 02 - 02:23 PM

The late Curtis Mayfield had a song of this title on his 1971 album Roots.

Subject: RE: 'Keep On Keepin On'
From: masato sakurai
Date: 28 Mar 02 - 02:26 PM

"Keep On Keepin' On" (Len Chandler) is in Newport Folk Festival Songbook, which is put up for the Mudcat Auction now (Click on "Shop & Auction" above).

~Masato

Subject: RE: 'Keep On Keepin On'
From:
Date: 28 Mar 02 - 08:51 PM

well, i have the poem dated back to the 1880s now... and from New Orleans apparently....

thanks steven rowe

Subject: RE: 'Keep On Keepin On'
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Mar 02 - 12:23 AM

Several entirely different songs use this title, which is biblical in origin. The New Riders of the Purple Sage have a new song with this title, but I'm sure it is not what you are looking for. Give us a few lines, Guest.

Subject: RE: 'Keep On Keepin On'
From: GUEST,JLS
Date: 14 May 07 - 06:24 PM

WOW...thanks for all the information regarding the song Keep On Keepin' On. Will follow your leads. I just have the lyrics and haven't heard it in years, but remember enjoying it very much. Thanks, again.

Subject: RE: Info/ADD: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: GUEST,BJ the DJ
Date: 23 Jun 08 - 10:24 AM

I am familiar with the Len Chandler song as performed by Pozo Seco (formerly the Pozo-Seco Singers) on their 1968 Columbia LP "Shades of Time". Group member Don Williams went on to be very successful in country music. As far as I know this album has never been released on CD, but the vinyl LP is readily available on eBay.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: GUEST,YM in Jerusalem
Date: 28 Jul 08 - 04:45 AM

This lyric probably was the source for Dylan's line "keep on keepin' on" in 'Tangled Up in Blue' - He and Len Chandler were friends in the early 60s and Dylan has some very moving things to say about him in Chronicles, pp. 87-92

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 28 Jul 08 - 12:24 PM

Whether or not Len Chandler or Curtis Mayfield or Robert Crumb originated it, the phrase "keep on keepin' on" became very popular, and widely used, in the US youth culture (or "counterculture") of the 1960s-70s.

By the time Bob wrote "Tangled Up in Blue," the phrase had become extremely commonplace, and not explicitly associated with any one particular song or other reference.

Subject: Lyr Add: JUS' KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 12:08 AM

From The Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic. Cincinnati: J.C. Culbertson, 1886, page 200:

JUS' KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON.

If the day looks kinder gloomy an' your chances kinder slim :
If the situation's puzzlin' an' the prospect awful grim,
An' perplexities keep pressin' till all hope is nearly gone,
Jus' bristle up and grit your teeth, an' keep on keepin' on.

Fumin' never wins a fight an' frettin' never pays ;
There ain't no good in broodin' in these pessimistic ways —
Smile jus' kinder cheerfully when hope is nearly gone.
An' bristle up, and grit your teeth, an' keep on keepin' on.

There ain't no use in growlin' an' grumblin' all the time
When music's ringin' everywhere, an' everything's a rhyme —
Jus' keep on smilin' cheerfully, if hope is nearly gone,
An' bristle up an' grit your teeth, an' keep on keepin' on.

— New Orleans Times-Democrat.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: georgeward
Date: 30 Jul 08 - 02:09 AM

Len recorded his song on his Columbia album 'Lovin' People' (1968, I think). He did it on Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest" TV series. You can see a much younger Len doing the song for a much younger Pete on (where else ?) YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qH5_0Etg_I

It's a long time ago, but I think Len's song reminded MLK of the phrase. May have been the other way 'round.

By me, it's just an old, old southern saying, black and white.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: Guldhamstern
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 06:35 AM

A beautiful song.
I've allways thought the song is on his first album: To be a man.

Though i've been looking for any record with Len Chandler, the only I can find is the rainbow quest on youtube.

I guees I have to keep on keepin' on with my searching.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 09:03 PM

Keep On Keepin' On" is on Len's "To Be A Man" album. I had the old vinyls converted to CD- "To Be A Man" was digitized directly from my old LP, so it has 35 years of pops & scratches. "Lovin' People" was recorded from a virgin copy of the album I bought on the Web w/ seals unbroken. It has been played exactly once... into the CD burner! Good sound.

I have a 3rd CD with 5 studio recordings Len gave me himself: Shadow of the Magic Dancer, Song of the Mind, Wasted Matches, I Have Tried With You.

I can send you copies. Len won't mind. He had me send HIM copies!!!!

Let me know.

Skip Flatt
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jan 11 - 03:29 PM

refresh...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: GUEST,laird
Date: 10 Jun 12 - 04:41 PM

check this out:
'Tis the Set of the Sail -- or -- One Ship Sails East
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1916

    But to every mind there openeth,
    A way, and way, and away,
    A high soul climbs the highway,
    And the low soul gropes the low,
    And in between on the misty flats,
    The rest drift to and fro.

    But to every man there openeth,
    A high way and a low,
    And every mind decideth,
    The way his soul shall go.

    One ship sails East,
    And another West,
    By the self-same winds that blow,
    'Tis the set of the sails
    And not the gales,
    That tells the way we go.

    Like the winds of the sea
    Are the waves of time,
    As we journey along through life,
    'Tis the set of the soul,
    That determines the goal,
    And not the calm or the strife.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: GUEST,Collie Leroy
Date: 30 Dec 20 - 03:34 PM

I believe that the lyrics to Len Chandler's songs "To Be a Man" and "Keep on Keepin' On" were written by someone named Don Green(e) in 1965. I was in the Army at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA and Don was in the same barracks I was. He was an excellent guitarist and also a songwriter. I remember him working on both of these songs and, at some point, mentioned he was writing them for Len. Over the years I have wondered whether he actually wrote them, or if he was learning songs that Len had already written and published. But, in looking up the album "To Be a Man", I believe that was released in 1968. If that is so, then it might suggest that Don was the actual author of these two songs.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 30 Dec 20 - 08:26 PM

I recorded this song on my album The Song and the Sigh. In the process of getting permission from Len to use his song, we had a good conversation. This song is particularly meaningful to him (and me).

Len published both "Keep On Keepin' On" and "To be a Man" in Broadside issue 34 in Novemver of 1963. Apparently Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's secretary was playing the Broadside recording when Dr. King walked into the room. After that, the phrase "Keep On keepin' On" started working its way into Dr. King's speeches.

Dan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req/Add: Keep On Keepin On (Len Chandler)
From: GUEST,Collie Leroy
Date: 29 Mar 21 - 11:10 AM

Thanks, Dan! That supports what I have thought for a long time--that the fellow in my barracks in 1965 who was working on these two songs was learning to play and perform them, not actually writing them. In the grand scheme of things, whether he did or not is not particularly significant. This was really just a matter of curiosity for me. The fact they were published in Broadside in 1963 is pretty indicative of Len being the author. Thanks for the info, Dan!