10 Aug 17 - 04:17 AM (#3870840)
Subject: Lyr Add: The Rich Man and the Poor Man (Miller)
From: Joe Offer
I cam across a YouTube recording of this great song by Bob Miller:
I see that Frank Hamilton has already posted this song, but it's in a place where it might get lost. Here it is again:
Thread #97991 Message #1939997
Posted By: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
17-Jan-07 - 07:37 PM
Thread Name: Hootenanny (1960s TV show)
Subject: ADD: The Rich Man and the Poor Man (Bob Miller)
Spaw you are probably right. Bird did play Birdland but not for long. He was banned from it. He was not a regular.
The Miller I'm talking about is Bob Miller who wrote the following song:
Lyrics as reprinted ibid., p. 64
© 1932
THE RICH MAN AND THE POOR MAN
(Bob Miller)
There's just two kinds of people, the sinner and the saint;
There's one that gets and always got while the other poor one ain't.
Oh, the rich man drives his Lincoln past the red light with a grin,
And the poor man follows right behind in his little hunk of tin.
There's a motorcycle copper following upon their trail;
Oh, the rich man tears his ticket, but the poor man goes to jail.
Oh, the rich man takes the high road anywhere that he may go,
But when the poor man's travelin' he must always take the low.
So if you're rich you'll travel snug as peas are in the pod;
Oh, the rich man rides a cushion and the poor man rides the rods.
Oh, the rich man when he's ailing stays at home and calls the doc,
But the poor man has to go to work, be in time to punch a clock.
The rich man takes his medicine, has his doctors and his nurse;
So the rich man he gets better but the poor man he gets worse!
Oh, the rich man steals a million from the bank that he controls,
While the poor man steals a loaf of bread or a penny's worth of rolls.
They take them to the courthouse, one is laughing, one's in tears;
Oh, the rich man gets an apology while the poor man gets ten years!
Oh, the rich man gets a lawyer and the lawyer pleads his case,
While the poor man asks for sympathy but of that there is no trace.
So if you're rich don't worry but the poor must give up hope;
Oh, the rich man gets acquitted while the poor man gets the rope!
Oh, the rich man when he kicks off has a casket made of gold,
While the poor man has a wooden box and his grave looks mighty cold.
The rich man gets a sermon but here's one thing that's sure,
When the rich man takes that long last ride he's as much dead as the poor!
One of the most continuingly popular songwriters in the country genre, from the 1920s until his death in 1955, was the "event" composer par excellence, Bob Miller.
Miller was not of country origin; he was born in 1895, in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis, however, provided him with a social milieu in which he could obtain a close acquaintance with southern melodies.
In the early twenties Miller played the piano for a dance band called the Idlewild Orchestra, which performed on the steamer Idlewild on the Mississippi River. In 1928 he moved to New York where he worked as an arranger for the Irving Berlin Company before establishing his own musical concern, the Bob Miller Publishing Company.
Although he composed numerous blues and popular tunes, the most important items in his repertory ov over seven thousand songs were the hillbilly items. In the decades following the 1920s Miller produced scores of lucrative and lastingly popular compositions, including the well-known "Eleven Cent Cotton and Forty Cent Meat"; the prison song which has inspired countless others, "Twenty-One Years"; ...and the World War II hit "There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere."
As an event-song writer Miller was always alive to the possibility of exploiting any incident that struck the fancy of the people. In fact, he was sometimes ahead of a story. He supposedly prepared an obituary song for [Louisiana governor] Huey Long two years before his assassination, and even went so far as to predict accurately that the killing would occur in the state Capitol.
He wrote a song called "Hootenanny Hoot".
Here are some more of his songs.
--- ELEVEN CENT COTTON, FORTY CENT MEAT
--- THE POOR FORGOTTEN MAN
--- THE RICH MAN AND THE POOR MAN
--- THERE'S A STAR-SPANGLED BANNER WAVING SOMEWHERE
--- TWENTY-ONE YEARS
Frank
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