Songs Submitted by Wayne Anderson

Folk Tales

Here’s an example of a folk tale in song, the origin of which is now lost to history. As with most folk songs, it has many versions with variations in both lyrical details and melody. A frequent change to lyrics that was made as songs were passed down by memorization from generation to generation was the setting of the events described in the song. I’ve done the same thing with this one.

The basic song is patterned after the 1930s Carter Family recording that sets the song in the upper Appalachians (West Virginia is mentioned). I’ve reset the location to Southwest Mississippi (the Pike-Amite County line). Most of the rest of the lyrics are unchanged.

John Hardy

John Hardy was a desperate little man

He carried two guns every day

He shot a man on the Pike County line

And you ought to have seen John Hardy getting away

John Hardy got to the Amite River Bridge

He thought that he would be free

And up stepped a man and took him by his arm,

Said, “Johnny, walk along with me”

He sent for his Papa and his Mama too

To come and go his bail

But money won’t bond on a murdering case

And they locked John Hardy back in jail.

John Hardy had a pretty little girl,

The dress that she wore was blue;

And she came skipping through the old jail hall,

Saying, “Papa, I’ve been true to you.”

John Hardy had another little girl,

The dress that she wore was red;

She followed John Hardy to his hanging ground,

Saying, “Papa, I would rather be dead.”

“I’ve been to the East and I’ve been to the West

I’ve been the wide world around;

I’ve been to the river and I’ve been baptized,

And now I’m on my hanging ground.”

John Hardy was down on his scaffold high

With his loving li’l wife by his side;

And the last words she heard poor Johnny say,

“I’ll meet you in that sweet by-and-by.”

John Hardy was a desperate little man

He carried two guns every day

He shot a man on the Pike County line

And so John Hardy threw his life away.

John Hardy

Work Song

This is provided primarily as an example of what is termed a “work song” that was used to help keep a cadence when work crews were doing various repetitive movements. Most songs such as this had their origins in the chanting of the gang foreman who set the pace for gangs of field hands doing such tasks as hoeing (‘chopping’ cotton, primarily). After the era of slavery and the large, hand-tended plantations, the songs or chants found their way into other tasks. Probably the most familiar use of the songs in the modern era is as cadence calls for prison work gangs cutting timber, hoeing prison fields and, the most dreaded of all, breaking rocks for gravel.

The song below can be heard in the Mississippi-made movie, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” in which it was used to demonstrate a prison road gang’s work. When used as a true cadence-keeper, the tempo must be slowed quite a bit or the bulk of the workers would keel over from overwork. The words of the song are the same regardless of the tempo at which they are sung. The MP3 file version below is the faster tempo version, called by some as the “white man’s version” since the bulk of the singers/chanters that have used the song for work were black.

Po' Lazarus

(Traditional with 3rd verse ‘tweaked’ to set the scene in Amite County)

Well, the high sheriff he told his deputy

He said, “Go out and bring me Lazarus”

Well, the high sheriff told his deputy

Says go out and bring me Lazarus

Bring him dead or alive, Lord, Oh Lord, bring him dead or alive

Well the deputy he told the high sheriff

He said, “I ain’t gonna mess with Lazarus”

Well the deputy he told the high sheriff

Says I ain’t gonna mess with Lazarus

‘Cause he’s a dangerous man, Lord, Oh Lord, he’s a dangerous man

Well then the high sheriff, he found Lazarus

He was hidin‘ in the Amite River bottom land

Well the high sheriff, found Lazarus

He was hidin‘ in the Amite River bottom land

With his head hung down, Lord, Oh Lord, with his head hung down

Well then the high sheriff, he told Lazarus

He says, “Lazarus I come to arrest you”

Well the high sheriff, told Lazarus

Says Lazarus I come to arrest you

And bring you dead or alive, Lord, Oh Lord, bring you dead or alive

Well then Lazarus, he told the high sheriff

He says, ” I never been arrested”

Well Lazarus, told the high sheriff

Says I never been arrested

By no one man, Lord, Oh Lord, by no one man

And then the high sheriff, he shot Lazarus

Well, he shot him with a great big number

Well the high sheriff, shot Lazarus

Well he shot him with a great big number

It was a forty five, Lord, Oh Lord, was a forty five

Well then they brought out old Lazarus

And they laid him on the commissary gallery

Well they brought out poor Lazarus

And they laid him on the commissary gallery

He said my wounded side, Lord, Oh Lord, my wounded side

Po’ Lazarus

The Great Depression

Although Mississippi was not as affected as other states by the drought conditions that created the “Dust Bowl,” it was a victim of the depressed economic conditions. This song was written by Woody Guthrie, an Oklahoman whose ‘roots music’ of the common man came into being in that era.

Some thirty years after Guthrie experienced life in the Depression, his songs took on folk music status. Unfortunately, Guthrie embraced socialistic politics as his view of the way to prevent similar economic hardship in the future. This resulted in his being an avid opponent of Fascism and he served in both the Merchant Marine and the Army at different points during WWII. After the war, he returned to his music but over a period of years, during which he advocated loudly for unions and other socialistic organizations, he began to show loss of control of some mental and physical faculties. Following a series of misdiagnoses in the early 50s, he was finally correctly diagnosed as having Huntington’s Chorea, a debilitating genetic condition that had incapacitated his mother many years earlier. He entered the hospital for treatment for the first time in 1954 but lived with the worsening conditions of the disease for 13 more years, during which time he became less and less able to make public appearances and perform. During the anti-Communist period of the 50s, his politics had resulted in him being made a persona non grata in most public arenas so that his music was heard only where a large percentage of the clientele shared in Guthrie’s politics.

During the 60s, the increase in the popularity of folk music resulted in a large new ‘crop’ of performers that drew on older, but not necessarily traditional folk music, for their repertoires. Guthrie is probably most famous as the creator of the song “This Land is Your Land” that most every folk performer did at some point in their careers. The song shown here, though relatively new in the context of what normally defines folk music, has been arranged and performed a variety of ways since Guthrie created it. No one can be certain that the words commonly sung to the tune have remained entirely intact from Guthrie’s original. The text below is, therefore, one version of how the song has been done.

Do-Re-Mi

(Woody Guthrie)

Well, lots of folks back East they say

Are leavin’ home most everyday,

Hittin’ the hard old dusty trail to California-Land.

Out across the sands they roll,

Gettin’ out of the old dust-bowl.

Think they’re going to a sugar bowl, here’s what they find:

For the police at the port of entry say,

You’re number 14 thousand for today –

Chorus 1:

If you ain’t got the do-re-mi, boys

If you ain’t got the do-re-mi

Better go back to beautiful Texas

Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee

California’s a garden of Eden

A paradise to live in or see.

But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot

If you ain’t got the do-re-mi.

Now you can buy a home or a farm,

That can’t do nobody harm.

Take your vacation by the mountains or the sea.

But you’d better not swap your cow for a car,

Better stay right where you are.

Better take this little tip from me:

‘Cause I look through the want ads every day

And the headlines on the papers always say –

Chorus 2:

If you ain’t got the do-re-mi, boys

If you ain’t got the do-re-mi

Better go back to beautiful Texas

Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee

California’s a garden of Eden

A paradise for you and for me.

But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot

If you ain’t got the do-re-mi.

The Liberty White Railroad

The Liberty White Railroad was short-lived but was the only rail line the eastern part of Amite County and the town of Liberty ever knew. The web site for the McComb City RR Museum offers a brief history of the Liberty White saying:

“Liberty White Railroad: Completed in 1904, this railroad stretched 25 miles from McComb to Liberty. It also ran to New Holmesville and Tylertown at one time. It had a narrow gauge branch from Irene to Keiths which was near Gillsburg. J.J. White, the owner, known as the ‘Baron of Yellow Pine’ was the first man to build a tram railroad in the state of Mississippi solely for the purpose of hauling logs to a sawmill. The railroad was dissolved in 1921 when it became no longer profitable.”

Some thirty years back I wrote the first cut of a song about the Liberty White but never fleshed it out by setting it to an existing suitable traditional tune or creating a tune for it. In the last two years or so I resurrected the old lyric, made a few changes and got a tune that seemed to work. Here’s the lyric as it was finalized:

Liberty White

A rusty spike in the dirt

All that still remains

Of an unremembered railroad line

A long forgotten train.