Lyr Req: East Texas Red (Woody Guthrie)

Subject: East Texas Red
From: Paul Jay
Date: 29 Jan 99 - 04:31 PM

I seem to have lost the lyrics to Wood Guthrie's "Little East Texas Red. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks

Subject: Lyr Add: EAST TEXAS RED^^
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Jan 99 - 05:03 PM

Down in the scrub-oak country of the South-East Texas gulf,
There used to ride a brakeman--and a brakeman double tough,
He worked the town of Kilgore and Longview 12 miles down,
And the hoboes said little East Texas Red was the meanest bull around.

Now whether you ride by the dim star light or the shimmering heat of the sun,
You will always see little East Texas Red just a-sportin' his cool running gun,
And the tale got switched down to stems and mains and everybody said,
That the meanes t bull on them shiny irons was little East Texas Red.

It was on one cold and drizzly day--along 'bout nine or ten,
A couple o' bums on the hunt of a job stood in the blizzardy wind,
Hungry and cold they knocked on the door of the workin' people all around,
For a piece of mead, a carrot or a spud just to boil their stew around.

Red he come on down the line and waved old number two,
Kicked their bucket over a bush and dumped out all o' their stew,
One of the boys said, "East Texas Red, you better get your business straight,
'Cause you're gonna ride that little black train just one year from this date."

Now, Red, he laughted and he clumb the bank & he jumped on the side of a wheeler,
And the boys caught a tanker for Seminole--then North to Amarillo,
They caught them a job of oilfield work and they followed that pipeline down,
It took 'em to a hell of a lot of places before that year had rolled around.

Then on one cold and foggy day they caught them a gulfbound train,
They shivered and shook with dough in their pockets to the scrub-oak flats again,
They followed the ties past the cinder dump until they came to that very same spot,
And there the same old 'bos set down--settin' 'round that same stew pot.

The smoke from their fire went higher and higher and Red come down the line,
He shivered and shook with the snow in his face as he waved old number nine,
He followed the ties past the cinder dump and he came to the very same spot,
And there he spied the same old 'bos a-settin' 'round that same stew pot.

Red went to his knees he hollered, "Please, don't pull that trigger on me."
"I did not get my business straight...", but he did not get his say.
A gun wheeled out from an overcoat--and it played the old 1-2,
And Red was dead when the other men sat down to eat their stew.

I've always felt this song by Woody Guthrie just might be an Americanization of the British tale SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT.

Anybody else see that connection?? (This song was on my first LP for Folk Legacy---A. T. THAT'S THE TICKET---now available on cassette from them or me. C-90)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Paul Jay
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 01:25 AM

Art Thanks very much. I haven't sung this in public for a long time and lost the middle verse and some parts of others. How much does the Cassette or CD cost?

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 05:52 AM

Hi, Paul - Click here to get to Folk-Legacy. Their cassettes are ten bucks, plus shipping. You probably should get both cassettes, plus his new CD from Waterbug. Art is, to say the least, entertaining. I'm sure he'll be along soon to tell you how to get stuff direct from him, or you can send him a personal message if you're registered at Mudcat.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Bill Cameron
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 12:49 PM

What cassette recording are you talking about?

Arlo Guthrie, appropriately, does a wonderful job on this song on the Folkways release "A Vision Shared" tribute to Woody & Leadbelly album.

I don't know about Sir Gawain, but I was struck by the classical structure of the plot--the song has bones AND beef. Or as you might way, its got parts.

Thanks for the lyrics Art.

Bill

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From:
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 01:27 PM

Oddly, SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT is not in the database.

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Art Thieme
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 01:57 PM

First--Thanks Joe!

Second--_Sir Gawain & The Green Knight_ is an ancient epic poem.--Not in stanzaic form. Not a song. Within that poem Gawain meets a green knight on the road. Gawain is allowed to cut the knight's head off if he'll meet back at the Green church in exactly one year. Then he must allow the green knight to sever his head willingly.

But just think of the grand gift that knowing the precise moment of the end of your life can be---if we only can view it that way. One would definitely have a heightened sense of EVERYTHING-----a real ability to make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.

Third---My cassette that has the song is on Folk Legacy--__Art Thieme--That's The Ticket__(C-90)---not from Waterbug.
Only my new CD is from Waterbug www.waterbug.com

I've always felt that this was the least compromising song Woody Guthrie ever wrote. It's about up-against-it folks who have a run-in with a sadistic brakeman who is messing with their lives by taking away what little food they have. Steinbeck said that the migrants had their own rules for their community. This situation could be taken care of by shunning the person---or by a quick and violent fight. The hoboes in the song resorted to the latter option---but only after they gave the guy a year to dwell on it. I doubt that Red found a spiritual/philosophical message in his situation.

Art

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Art Thieme
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 02:04 PM

Cisco Houston did it on his last LP for Vanguard---__I Aint Got No Home__------He made it right before he died in '61.

Strange--but I just realized I left the 2nd verse off of my recording of E.T.Red. And that's my favorite verse...

Took me a dozen years to see that! Bizarre!!

Art

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 31 Jan 99 - 02:19 PM

Hi- As far as I know, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a tale; not a song. Probably one reason we don't have it in the DT.

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 11:01 AM

I should've been a bit clearer.

When I said "Cisco Houston recorded IT..." I was referring to "EAST TEXAS RED" not "Sir Gawain & Gr. Knight".

"Sir Gawain" is definitely not a song!! But it's a great tale.

Sorry folks.

Art

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 01 Feb 99 - 05:40 PM

Wasn't the Green Knight who challenged Gawain a manifestation of the Green Man? Read my brief article on the Green Man by clicking on the "Patons" image on the opening page of our Folk-Legacy web site. It's been edited down to bare essentials, but you'll get the point, I think. Click here: FOLK-LEGACY. That oughta work.

Sandy

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Dr John
Date: 03 Feb 99 - 05:11 PM

"I Ain't Got no Home" was a great LP; does anyone know if it is available on CD? His other two Vanguard LP,s are.

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Art Thieme
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 01:30 AM

Cisco Houston's other two Vanguard LPs are __The Cisco Special__ and __Songs Of Woody Guthrie__

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 02:09 AM

I loved Cisco's "I Ain't Got No Home." Great "Trouble In Mind," among others.

All the best, Dan

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From:
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 05:23 PM

I have been singing this song for years, along the lines of the version given by Art Thieme, from a distantly remembered version of Cisco Houston doing it at the Newport Folk Festival in the late 50s.

My version is a little different from Art's - I think the sixth verse goes like this [inserts in square brackets]

Then on one cold and foggy day they caught them a gulfbound train, They shivered and shook with [the dough in their clothes] to the scrub-oak flats again, [In their warm suits of clothes and their overcoats, they walked into a store, And they paid that man for some meat and stuff, just to boil that stew once more.]

This eliminates the repeated last lines in Art's verses six and seven. In addition, I have always felt that there was something missing from even this version - I had a chance to ask Mark Ross at the Vancouver Folk Festival last month, and he recited the other lyrics - I did not have a chance to write them down, but will get them from Mark and post to this thread when I can

Subject: Lyr Add: EAST TEXAS RED^^
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 07:00 PM

These are the words as published in a paperback book "The Nearly Complete Collectionof Woody Guthrie Folk Songs" put out by Ludlow Music circa 1964- my copy's missing the front cover & first few pages so I don't have the publication info.

Best, Greg

EAST TEXAS RED
A Ballad by Woody Guthrie
© Copyright 1963 Ludlow Music, Inc., New York, N.Y.

Down in the scrub oak timber of the South-east Texas Gulf
There used to ride a brakeman and a brakeman double tough
He worked the town of Kilgord and Longview nine miles down
Us trav'lers called him East Texas Red the meanest bull around.

I rode by night and by broad daylight in wind and snow and sun
I always seen little East Texas Red sporting his smooth running gun
The tale got switched down the stems and main and everybody said
The meanest man on the shiny rails was little East Texas Red.

It was early in the morning and along towards nine or ten
A couple of boys on the hunt of a job stood in the blizzardy wind
Hungry and cold they knocked on the doors of the working folks around
For a piece of meat and a spud or two to boil a stew around.

Red he come down the cinder dump and he flagged the number two
He kicked their bucket over a bush and he dumped out all their stew
A traveler said "Mister East Texas Red you better get everything fixed
'Cause you're gonna ride your little train just one year from today."

Red he laughed as he clumb the bank and swung aside of a wheeler
The boys caught a tanker to Seminoll and west to Amarillo
They struck them a job of oil field work and followed a pipe line down
It took them lots of places till the year had rolled around.

On one cold and wintery day they hooked them a Gulf bound train
They shivered and shook with dough in their clothes to see Kilgore again
Over hills of sand and hard froze roads where the cotton wagons roll
On past the town of Kilgore and on to old Longview.

With their warm suits of clothes and overcoats they walk into a store
They pay the man for some meat and stuff to fix a stew once more
The ties they walk back past the yards till they come to the same old spot
Where East Texas Red just a year ago had dumped their last stew pot.

The smoke of their fire went higher and higher a man come down the line
He ducked his head in the blizzardy wind and waved old number nine
He walked off down the cinder dump till he come to the same old spot
And there was the same three men again around that same little pot.

Red went to his knees and he hollered "Please don't pull that trigger on me.
I did not get my business fixed but he did not get his say
A gun wheeled out of an overcoat and it played the old one two
And Red was dead when the other two men set down to eat their stew.

***

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Jul 01 - 07:13 PM

The words that Greg just put up are, not surprisingly, the almost exact words used by Arlo on the Folkways "Vision Shared" album. That was the one by various artists done as a tribute to Woody and Leadbelly.....there was a TV special too.

I always loved the song, I've said it before here in one of the "favorites" threads that "East Texas Red" is the best "dont get mad, get even" song ever written.

Spaw

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: John Kidder
Date: 28 Jul 01 - 08:31 PM

Thank you Greg.

Dead on (as it were).

John

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Deckman
Date: 28 Jul 01 - 09:04 PM

I REALLY love mudcat! (strange way to start a posting Bob). This thread FORCED me to contribute a wonderful hoot memory. If I write it well, you will understand ... It was the late 1950's at the home of the late Dick Landberg, in Aberdeen, Washington, USA. We were all there: Dick and his beautiful bride Carolyn, Walt Robertson, Don Firth, Bob (RJ) Clarke, Elmar Lanczos, and many others. These were the days when we got together, just for ourselves, whenever we wanted to, for whatever pleased us ... and these songs pleased us. Someone started singing the "Hoboe's Lament". Without a pause, when the song was finished, someone else started singing, in the same key and rhythm, "Danville Girl". After that was done, someone else started "East Texas Red." After that, Walt slid in, same key, same rhythm, "Cleelum Girl." That 30 minutes of music was magical. It was mesmorising to hear all these different contributions slide in, vertially the same story, same melody, almost, same key and same rhythms. After all these years, I STILL remember it as clearly as if it was in my living room last night! I noticed, on this thread, that "East Texas Red" was copywrited in the 1960's. It's important to remember that these ballads were sung at hoots years before they were copywrited! I LOVE MUDCAT! CHEERS, BOB(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Jul 01 - 10:26 PM

And that story is why we LOVE having you around Bob. Eight-ten years later a group of us were also sitting around and doing very much the same thing. Lots of nights of that....and some, as you say, were simply magical. None of us were of your stature but we all had a great time and many nights, well...............Thanks for the story because it triggers such great memories for me as I'm sure it does others.

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,
That we could sit simply in that room again.
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat,
I'd give it all gladly if our lives could be like that.
......................last verse from "Bob Dylan's Dream"

Yeah..............thanks again Bob.

Spaw

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Jul 01 - 10:41 PM

Ditto, here, Bob, beautiful story.

I first heard this on Art's cassette and it's been one of my favs ever since.

luvyakat

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Jul 01 - 01:12 AM

... a reply to catspaw49 ... "none of us were of your stature." My stature has always been quite small, about 5 foot nine, 160 pounds. But I was blessed by lucky contact and lasting friendships with women and men who treasured the olde songs and tales. I suspect that valuing this heritage is what builds stature. I also suspect that you also, have some considerable stature! ... but I'm still only 5 foot nine! I DO appreciate your comments. CHEERS Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 29 Jul 01 - 09:10 AM

I love this song too. I had read it in my Woody songbooks for several years before I first heard it sung. Then, what had been an interesting story, evocative of an era sprang into life for me. It has been one of my favourites ever since. And who was it that made this song so vivid for me? None other than Art Thieme, a man we must all recognise as being one of the great storytelling singers of all time. I'm glad to read in this thread that other people are singing it too, giving the song a life beyond the printed page, just as Woody would have wished I'm sure. Now, is anybody out there singing another of my 'great unheard', 'Belle Starr'?

Subject: Lyr Add: I AIN'T GOT NO HOME (Woody Guthrie)
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Jul 01 - 10:55 AM

"I Ain't Got No Home" is one of my favorites, too, and I'm surprised it doesn't get more "play". I've heard lots of different versions(includint the one in the DT), so thought I'd post the lyrics from the paperback book mentioned above, just as a point of reference. Probably should have posted this under its own title, so excuse the "thread creep".

Best, Greg
***

I AIN'T GOT NO HOME
Woodie Guthrie
©1961 Ludlow Music, NY

I ain't got no home, I'm just a-ramblin' round
A hard workin' ramblin' man, I go from town to town
The police make it hard wherever I may go
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

I was farmin' on the shares, and always I was poor
My crops I laid into the banker's door
And my wife took down and died upon the cabin floor
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Now as I look around its mighty plain to see
This wide wicked world is a funny place to be
The gamblin' man is rich and the workin' man is poor
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.
***

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Jul 01 - 11:00 AM

WOODIE?? Sheesh, thought I was awake. Sorry.

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Jul 01 - 06:56 PM

Burl---A cassette with "Belle Starr" will go out to you in 3 or 4 days. It'll be done by JIM CRAIG who is very probably the best actual male voice on the Chicago scene over all the revival years------and that covers lots o' singers. Jim now owns HOGEYE MUSIC, a fine music store in Evenston, Illinois--the first suburb North of Chicago along Lake Michigan. (That shop was originally owned by Anne Hills and her then husband, the fine guitar maker Jan Burda.)

Say, did the cassettes I sent last week or so get to ya? What were they? (Really, I can't remember. It's part of my malady these days.)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: John Kidder
Date: 30 Jul 01 - 12:35 PM

This should probably be a different thread, but what the hell. I sing another verse to "I Ain't Got No Home":

My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this road This hot and dusty road that a million feet have trod Rich man took my home and drove me from my door And I ain't got no home in this world any more.

Is this not an original verse? If not, where did it come from?

johnk

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Jul 01 - 03:30 PM

I Ain't Got No Home continued HERE for clarity ( I hope ) :-)

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: John Kidder
Date: 01 Aug 01 - 02:04 PM

GregF:

Just thought I'd mention that I played both "East Texas Red" and "I Ain't Got No Home" at the Jericho (Vancouver) Folk CLub last night. Well received, confirmation that our folklore has always been transnational, well before Coca-Cola and the WTO.

John

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: AliUK
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 09:07 PM

anybody got the chord pro. of this song for a dumbass who only knows about 7 chords?

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Deckman
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 10:30 PM

I JUST learned how to post words correctly, now you want me to do chords also ... ssshhhheeeeuuuuhhhh! (grin)! I'll bet that someone more profient than me can help you out. By the way, you don't need 7 chords for this song. CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 10:38 PM

Three will do it. Try C, F and G7---or any variations thereof.

Art

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Sep 01 - 11:08 PM

G(Down in).....G7(timber)....C(Southeast Texas)......G(gulf).....G(There used to).........(brake)E(man)........(and a)A7(brakeman double)D(tough)....D7........(He)G(worked)

That's the basic pattern if you can figure it out Ali.

Spaw

Subject: RE: East Texas Red
From: GUEST,Guest AliUK on the works comp
Date: 27 Sep 01 - 08:43 AM

thanks guys gonna help me a lot *G*