Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain

Subject: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain
From: Scoville
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 01:28 PM

Okay, this is a weird one, and probably a wild goose chase.

I was in the grocery store the other day and their "canned radio" played a pop--yes, pop--song that included a verse about pawning the gold watch and chain.

It was not "Gold Watch and Chain"--I know that one really well. The tune was different and the words were different, at least, from any recording of GW&C I've ever encountered. The style was more along the lines of 1950's pop music.

I was a dedicated listener to oldies radio, including the late-night obscure-song shows, for years and never heard this. I suppose it could be a newer song in an imitative style.

If anyone has a clue what it might have been, I'd like to hear it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and cha
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 01:37 PM

Emergency Exit


Heyyy heyyy heyyy heyyy

Fourteen miles away from a landfill grave
Never pawned my watch and chain
To the landlord living inside my head
Never paid my rent 'til the lights went dead
And I saw my sign coming up the road
Dead ditch waitin' for to bury my load
On the avenues in the plain of day
Threw a Roosevelt dime in a bucket of rain
Ohh ohh oh oh
Ohh ohh oh oh

Now hold your hand up to the plow
Work the dirt til the sun goes down
What's left of death is more than fear
Let dust be dust and the good Lord near
It's a little too much to ask of faith
A little too late to wait for fate
So tell the angels what you've seen
Scarecrow shadow on the Nazarene
Ohh ohh oh oh
Ohh ohh oh oh

Kindness will find you
When darkness is falling round your bend
Kindness will follow
Children will wander 'til the end
Heyyy ohhh ooh


Possible?

Giok

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain
From: Cool Beans
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 04:27 PM

The Everly Brothers' recording of "I'm Just Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail" included the lines "I will pawn you my watch, I will pawn you my chain." Could that be it?

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain
From: Rasener
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 05:32 PM

it wasn't Donovan was it?

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and cha
From: open mike
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 05:39 PM

the "Gold Watch and Chain" that is the one i know is a Carter Family song. this, apparently is the one you say it was NOT.

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 05:46 PM

The line appears in the song, "Here to get my baby out of jail".

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 05:47 PM

"HERE TO GET MY BABY OUT OF JAIL"

I'm not in your town to stay
said the lady old and gray,
to the warden of the penitentiary.
I'm not in your town to stay
and I'll soon be on my way,
I'm just here to get my baby out of jail.
Oh, warden,
I'm just here to get my baby out of jail.

I tried to raise my baby right,
I have prayed both day and night,
that he wouldn't follow in the footsteps of his dad.
I have searched both far and wide,
and I feared that he had died,
but at last I found my baby here in jail,
Oh, warden,
at last I found my baby here in jail.

It was just five years today
when his daddy passed away.
He was found beneath the snow so cold and white.
'Twas then I vowed to take his ring
and his gold watch and his chain,
then the county laid his daddy in the grave,
Yes, warden,
The county laid his daddy in the grave.

I will pawn you his watch,
I will pawn you his chain,
I will pawn you my diamond wedding ring.
I will wash all your clothes,
I will scrub all your floors,
If that will get my baby out of jail.
Yes, warden,
if that will get my baby out of jail.

Then I heard the warden say
to the lady old and gray.
I'll go bring your darlin' baby to your side.
Two iron gates swung wide apart,
and she held her darling to her heart.
She kissed her baby boy and then she died,
but, smiling,
she kissed her baby boy and then she died.

(Karl Davis and Harty Taylor, c. early 1930s)

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain
From: Rasener
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 05:54 PM

I always liked that by the everly brothers

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain
From: SINSULL
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 06:21 PM

The Blue Sky do a wonderful version of this one. Somewhere I read that the Everly Brothers learned it from the Blue Sky Boys.
One of my favorites since I was about 10 years old.

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 12:54 AM

Versions of "Nine Hundred Miles" contain the lines:

    I will pawn you my watch,
    I will pawn you my chain,
    Pawn you my gold diamond ring.
    If that train runs me right,
    I'll be home tomorrow night;
    I'm nine hundred miles from my home,
    And I hate to hear that lonesome whistle blow.
    It's that long, lonesome train a-whistlin' down.

Could that be what you heard?

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain
From: mtk
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 10:25 PM

The "Prairie Home Companion" movie has a song with the following verse.

I will pawn you my gold watch and chain, love
I will pawn you my gold wedding ring
I will pawn you this heart in my bosom
Only say that you love me again

Subject: RE: Origins: Help: 1950's style gold watch and chain
From: Scoville
Date: 05 Jul 06 - 12:17 PM

Nope, nope, and nope. I used to be a big Everly fan (30 years too late), and I've known "900 Miles" since I was little. I don't think the verse words were that similar but they were hard to hear amidst the "cleanup on aisle 3" messages.

THanks, all the same. I'll keep looking.