The mouse

[Page Stephens]

Songs like Jimmie Rodgers' T for Texas contain a lot of vagrant verses. Here
are the words for T for Texas:

T for Texas
Jimmie Rodgers

      E                               E7 A
Well, 'T' for Texas, 'T' for Tennessee
A                               E
'T' for Texas, 'T' for Tennessee
B7                                                E
'T' for Thelma, the gal that made a wreck out of me

If you don't want me mama, you sure don't have to stall
If you don't want me mama, you sure don't have to stall
'Cause I can get more women than a passenger train [can haul]

Well, I'm going where the water drinks like cherry wine
I'm going where the water drinks like cherry wine
'Cause this Georgia water tastes like turpentine

I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollow log
I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollow log
Than to be here in Atlanta, [and] get treated like a dirty dog

E            B7          E
Women make a fool out of me

If you're ever down in mobile be sure to look me up
If you're ever down in mobile be sure to look me up
And if your ever in Atlanta tell Lucille to go to hell

Women make a fool out of me

You can ignore the chord changes since unless he was capoed up I frankly
doubt that Jimmie Rodgers ever played anything in the key of E.

To make it even more complex Jimmie Rodgers' "Last Blue Yodel" is subtitled
"The Women Make a Fool Out of Me", and when I play that song I often start
out with the first verse from T for Texas since they are to the same tune.

I wouldn't be surprised if Blind Lemon who was from Texas used some of these
verses in his songs although I cannot vouch for it since I would have to go
through my incomplete Blind Lemon collection in order to find them.

I will not get into all of the technical details of determining authorship
of any song except to say that quite often it is very difficult to determine
authorship due to the fact that often a famous singer would put his name as
first author on a song when he recorded it as a quid pro quo for having
recorded it. I may be wrong but I am convinced that this is what happened
with Jimmie Rodgers' "When it's Peach Picking Time in Georgia" since my late
fiddler friend Clayton McMichen of  Gid Tanner and The Skillet Lickers and
later Clayton McMichens's Georgia Wildcats who worked with Jimmie Rodgers
probably wrote the song even though his name appears after Rodgers' name on
the copyright.

"Peach Picking Time in Georgia" in any case is probably much more original
than either of the Jimmie Rodgers' "Blue Yodels" we have been discussing
which contain so many vagrant verses.

I will leave you with the following note.

My friend Amos Garrett recently recorded a version of as song which he
entitled "Michigan Water Blues" on his CD entitled "Amos Garrett Acoustic
Album" which includes the cherry wine and turpentine references. He
references it as "Trad. Arranged and adapted by Amos Garrett  Wooly Worm
Music SOCAN"

This is totally appropriate since he and I played that song with different
references some 43 years ago in Crawfordsville, Indiana. For some odd reason
we used to sing "Crawfordsville water tastes like turpentine".

Page Stephens

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at EARTHLINK.NET>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 1:38 AM
Subject: Re: The mouse


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at EARTHLINK.NET>
> Subject:      Re: The mouse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> Beats the shit outta me, Lar. I know it from a Blind Lemon Jefferson
> recording. Actually, it's a line favored by several Texas bluesmen. But
> I have no idea as to whether any of them proceeded or followed Jimmie
> Rodgers. I restrict myself to the Texas-Louisiana-Mississippi axis,
> with very few exceptions, just as a matter of preference. We Texans,
> regardless of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, are as
> chauvinistic about our state as we're reputed to be. [Please don't
> forget that Dubyuh is a native of *Connecticut* and NOT of Texas!]
>
> "Well, I've been to Dallas and I've been to San Antone, but there's a
> place called Marshall where I'm better known." - Floyd Dixon: Marshall,
> Texas, Is My Home.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Jul 25, 2004, at 12:07 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: The mouse
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > --------
> >
> > At 1:23 PM -0400 7/24/04, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >> On Jul 24, 2004, at 9:05 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>
> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>> -----------------------
> >>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> >>> Subject:      Re: The mouse
> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> --
> >>> --------
> >>>
> >>> East Tennesseans commonly talk about "picking up the room" meaning
> >>> picking things up off the floor, mainly.
> >>>
> >>> JL
> >>
> >> Yes, it also means that in East Texas, too. "'T' for Texas and 'T' for
> >> Tennessee," as the traditional blues line says.
> >>
> >> -Wilson Gray
> >>
> > Isn't that from Jimmie Rodgers (The Singin' Brakeman)?  ("...T for
> > Thelma, the gal who made a wreck out of me")   Or did he borrow it
> > from someone earlier?
> >
> > larry
> >