Lyr Req: Long Chain On (from Peter Paul & Mary)

To Thread - Forum Home

The Mudcat Café ^TM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=46093
11 messages

Lyr Req: Long Chain On (from Peter Paul & Mary)

03 Apr 02 - 10:31 PM (#682472)
Subject: Peter, Paul, and Mary Song
From: GUEST,lloyd63

Is there a song about a guy with a ball and chain on his leg?

Lloyd63

03 Apr 02 - 11:03 PM (#682486)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Peter, Paul, and Mary Song
From: Louie Roy

The Carter Family done a song about a man with a chain around his leg and shackle on his feet in the early thirties and I believe the name is (It takes A Weary Man To Sing A Weary Song)It's in the Forum some place but I couldn't find it.Louie Roy

03 Apr 02 - 11:05 PM (#682487)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Peter, Paul, and Mary Song
From: irishajo

Try this

03 Apr 02 - 11:07 PM (#682488)
Subject: Lyr Add: LONG CHAIN ON (Jimmy Driftwood)
From: irishajo

Is this it?

(Long Chain On - Jimmy Driftwood)

LONG CHAIN ON
Jimmy Driftwood- Jimbo Publishing Co. BMI

One night as I lay on my pillow,
moonlight as bright as the dawn
I saw a man come a walking,
he had a long chain on.
I heard his chains a clankin',
they made a mournful sound,
Welded around his body,
draggin' along the ground.

Chorus:
He had a long chain on
He had a long chain on
He had a long chain on

He stood beside my window,
he looked at me and he said
"I am so tired and hungry.
Give me a bite of your bread"
He didn't look like a robber,
he didn't look like a thief
His voice was as soft as the moonlight,
a face full of sorrow and grief.

(Chorus)

I went into my kitchen,
fetched him a bowl full of meat
A drink and a pan of cold biscuits,
that's what I gave him to eat
Though he was tired and hungry
a bright light came over his face
He bowed his head in the moonlight,
he said a beautiful grace.

(Chorus)

I got my hammer and chisel,
offered to set him free
He looked at me and said softly,
"I guess we had best let it be."
When he had finished his supper,
he thanked me again and again.
Though it's been years since I've seen him,
still hear him draggin' his chain.

(Chorus)

04 Apr 02 - 01:11 AM (#682525)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Peter, Paul, and Mary Song
From: Night Owl

Hi lloyd....try "Worried Man Blues" in the Database...(it was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary). Hope it's the one you're looking for. I WILL learn to do links!!

04 Apr 02 - 06:15 AM (#682656)
Subject: Peter, Paul, and Mary Trivia
From: Joe Offer

Say, as long as there's a PP&M thread going, there's a trivia question that's bothering me. In the movie Airplane, there's a singing nun who plays a song written by Peter Yarrow. Her guitar swings around as she plays and sings very sincerely, and it pulls the IV tubes out of an deathly-ill patient.
What's the name of that song?
I can't remember, and it's bugging me.
-Joe Offer-

04 Apr 02 - 06:37 AM (#682662)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Peter, Paul, and Mary Song
From: Wolfgang

from a movie site:

The only person I can remember that kind of tickles me is Peter Yarrow, who wrote a song called "River of Jordan." It's the one the stewardess sings as she's playing the guitar and knocks the IV out of the little girl's arm. That was a very serious song Yarrow had written for some serious occasion. But nonetheless, he sold it to these people to put it in a movie--[for] us--not realizing the context it was gonna be used in. So, it kind of came back later that he'd like to sue us, but he didn't.

Wolfgang

04 Apr 02 - 07:19 AM (#682684)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Peter, Paul, and Mary Song
From: Joe Offer

That's the one, Wolfgang, River of Jordan. I think Peter Yarrow recorded it on his solo album that came out just after the group broke up in the early 1970's. I suppose one could say it's trite 60's pseudofolk, but it's a nice-enough song. PP&M did a recording of it in the 1990's with Dave Van Ronk and Ronnie Gilbert, on one of the Lifelines albums. Thanks for refreshing my memory. -Joe Offer-

04 Apr 02 - 05:57 PM (#683184)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Peter, Paul, and Mary Song
From: Giac

If the song is Long Chain On (irishajo's second link), here is another good site which also has chords:

Long Chain On with chords

The song is in the DT here:

Long Chain On

but does not credit Jimmy Driftwood as the writer.

05 Apr 02 - 05:46 PM (#684027)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Peter, Paul, and Mary Song
From: GUEST,lloyd63

"Long Chain On" is it.

Thank you.

07 Apr 02 - 02:19 PM (#685021)
Subject: Lyr Add: RIVER OF JORDAN (Peter Yarrow)
From: Jim Dixon

Copied from http://www.peterpaulandmary.com/music/f-18-15.htm

I traveled the banks of the River of Jordan to find where it flows to the sea.
I looked in the eyes of the cold and the hungry and I saw I was looking at me.
I wanted to know if life had a purpose and what it all means in the end.
In the silence, I listened to voices inside me, and they told me again and again:

There is only one river. There is only one sea.
And it flows through you, and it flows through me.
There is only one people. We are one and the same.
We are all one spirit. We are all one name.
We are the father, mother, daughter, and son.
From the dawn of creation, we are one.
We are one.

Every blade of grass on the mountain, every drop in the sea,
Every cry of a newborn baby, every prayer to be free,
Every hope at the end of a rainbow, every song ever sung,
Is a part of the family of woman and man, and that means everyone.

We are only one river. We are only one sea.
And it flows through you, and it flows through me.
We are only one people. We are one and the same.
We are all one spirit. We are all one name.
We are the father, mother, daughter, and son
From the dawn of creation, we are one.
We are one.