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Tune Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song

24 May 07 - 04:30 PM (#2060148)
Subject: Chord Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song by Bill Staines
From: lefthanded guitar

If anyone has the chords (and words if possible) to this song please post here and (if possible) mail to me at lensladyemail@yahoo.com I love this song, one of those haunting ones that says so much more than just the words, which are evocative as it is.

I have been listening to this hearttugging song for a year and would like to play it. I also have just started banjo lessons (and learning my share of banjo jokes I can assure you) but will first learn to play it on guitar.

THANKS
'leftie'

PS I play guitar just like Bill does, upside down and backwards, tho I don't sound as fine as he.

02 Jun 07 - 03:01 PM (#2066642)
Subject: Tune Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song
From: GUEST,left handed guitar

Once again I am asking for help with this beautiful and haunting melody. I am sitting around on this lovely lazy June afternoon with one of the best banjo players in Brooklyn, trying to learn the song. He would like to hear it (my version is a little....ah..well let's just say the folk process is well underway here..so my version is less than...mmm... exact) -so would anybody be able to download the song(or just a part of it) and email it to me at
lensladyemail@yahoo.com

THANKS .Eric helped me before with words and chords but now I need my friend to hear the music.

02 Jun 07 - 03:26 PM (#2066653)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song
From: katlaughing

tune sent

02 Jun 07 - 04:03 PM (#2066672)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song
From: GUEST

Hey, still trying to get this song. Kat graciously sent it to my email at lensladyemail@yahoo.com - but for some reason we couldn't download. Can Kat or someone resend, either to my email or here???
Thanks again, leftie

02 Jun 07 - 04:49 PM (#2066710)
Subject: ADD: The Miner's Song (Bill Staines)
From: Joe Offer

For the record, here are the lyrics, which are somewhat hidden in a thread of a different title. I added corrections to what had been posted in the other thread. Where'd you find a tune, Kat?
-Joe Offer-

The Miner's Song
(Bill Staines, 1985)

When first unto this country a stranger I came,
A pick and shovel on my back, No money to my name,
No money to my name.

I landed in old Juneau, Seattle far behind,
I boated 'cross the channel
Where I worked the Treadwell mine,
I worked the Treadwell mine.

Well, it was hard times in the open pit, eighteen hundred down
One day you'd make two dollars and the next you're glory bound,
The next you're glory bound.

So I dodged the rocks from the sudden slides and I swam out of the flood,
In the rain and cold we dug for gold through the water and the mud,
Through the water and the mud.

There's color in the eagle's eye, and in the sun at the break of day,
But there ain't no color I could find to keep me on that pay,
To keep me on that pay.

So it was straight way through the wilderness to Fairbanks up the line,
And down the frozen Yukon in the year of ninety-nine,
The year of ninety-nine.

Now there's twenty thousand of us here out on the beach at Nome,
And there ain't but one in fifty who can pay his way back home,
Pay his way back home.

God find the snow-blind trapper and help him on his way,
God bless the drunken fiddler when he finds the time to play,
And hear the words of the dying man left frozen in the cold,
And pity the weary miner who's never found his gold,
Who never found his gold.

Well, I wish I were in Portland or some other seacoast town,
I'd sail around this whole wide world and lay this cradle down,
Lay this cradle down.

from Music to Me: The Songs of Bill Staines, Hall Leonard Corporation, 1994.

Click to play

02 Jun 07 - 05:25 PM (#2066730)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song
From: GUEST

Thanks .The fiddle solo is amazing and I was wanting my friend to hear it- to me, the combination of that first song (which I call the Yodeling Tune but has another name I can't recall- and following that exuberant tune with the haunting Miner's Song- it is like aural theatre. A play before your ears and imagination's eyes.

I do already have the lyrics. But can't download the music. If someone can send the music here in about 200 seconds, we could listen to it.

Otherwise I'll bring my banjo friend the CD next time- we are going to hear the very fine Johnson Girls at the Brooklyn Museum tonight in about 201 seconds. Maybe 202. ;-)

02 Jun 07 - 05:32 PM (#2066733)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song
From: Joe Offer

MP3 coming. Give me ten minutes, or wait until you get home. You don't want to miss a Johnson Girls concert.
-Joe-

02 Jun 07 - 05:39 PM (#2066737)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song
From: GUEST

THANKS - If we have to leave before we receive it, I'll tell him to log on and hear it later. But we still are ..ah...noshing.

02 Jun 07 - 05:57 PM (#2066750)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song
From: katlaughing

Umm...Joe? From the CD you kindly gifted to me!**bg**

02 Jun 07 - 06:14 PM (#2066758)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song
From: Joe Offer

This is taking a while - damn dialup conneciton...
Nope - it isn't working. The upload to MSN failed twice, and now I have to head out for a while.
The yodeling song is "The Ballad of the Maples," which I think is in honor of a tavern in New Hampshire - right?
-Joe-

13 Jun 07 - 10:57 PM (#2076391)
Subject: RE: Chord Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song (Bill Staine
From: Jim Dixon

The lyrics to SOURDOUGH/MINER'S SONG have been posted in the thread Lyr Req: Gold Miners' Songs (American).

There is also some discussion of the song in this thread: Tune Req: Sourdough/Miner's Song (Bill Staines), but alas, no chords.

Maybe this will inspire someone to supply them.
    Tune and chords request threads combined.
    -Joe Offer-

14 Jun 07 - 02:33 AM (#2076491)
Subject: ADD Chords: Miner's Song (Staines)
From: Joe Offer


         G              Am7       G           D
  When first unto this country a stranger I came,
   C               G     Em       D           C
  Pick and shovel on my back, no money to my name,
       D           G  
  No money to my name.
  
                  Am7          G          D
  I landed in old Juneau, Seattle far behind;
     C                 G      Em       D                     C
  I boated 'cross the channel where I worked the Treadwell mine,
     D                    G
  I worked the Treadwell mine.