"Grey dog" = "Greyhound bus"

Thu Jun 5 19:03:25 UTC 2014

Note 1956 ex. of "the joint" (jail or prison), pretty early for general pop
culture.

(Earlier in joint glossaries. See HDAS.)

JL

On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 2:40 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Grey dog" = "Greyhound bus"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's a 1956 Louvin Brothers version, "Cash on the Barrelhead", that
> I've have on my iTunes as performed by them, by Dolly Parton, by Gram
> Parsons, and by Rhonda Vincent, all basically the same, in which the
> Greyhound driver reminds the unfortunate cash-strappee that "this old grey
> dog gets paid to run" (see last two verses):
>
> I got in a little trouble at the county seat
> Lord, they put me in the jailhouse
> For loafing on the street
> Well, the judge said guilty
> He made his point
> He said forty-five dollars
> Or thirty days in the joint
>
> That'll be cash on the barrelhead, hon'
> You can take your choice
> You're twenty-one
> No money down
> No credit plan
> No time to chase you
> Cause I'm a busy man
>
> I found a telephone number on a laundry slip
> I had a good-hearted jailer
> With a six gun hip
> He let me call long distance
> She said, "Number, please"
> And just as soon as I told her
> She shouted back at me
>
> Said that'll be cash on the barrelhead, hon'
> Not part, not half
> But the entire sum
> No money down
> No credit line
> Cause a little bird tells me
> You're the travelin' kind
>
> Thirty days in the jailhouse
> Four days on the road
> I was feelin' mighty hungry
> My feet, a heavy load
> I saw a Greyhound comin'
> Stuck out my thumb
> As soon as I was seated
> The driver caught my arm
>
> Said that'll be cash on the barrelhead, hon'
> This old, grey dog gets paid to run
> When the engine starts
> And the wheels will roll
> Give me cash on the barrelhead
> I take ya down the road
> Ohh, cash on the barrelhead
> I take you down the road
>
> [This is Dolly's version; for the Louvin Bros.', "hon'" > "son"]
>
> LH
>
>
>
>
> On Jun 5, 2014, at 1:00 PM, George Thompson wrote:
>
> > Not a very clever bit of slang, but not in HDAS nor Greene's Dictionary.
> >
> > (Background: I've pointed out here before a radio station emanating from
> > Poughkeepsie that by policy plays chiefly American popular and folk music
> > recorded before 1970 -- WHVW.  It's an exceeding low-watt station with
> very
> > limited broadcast range, perhaps 25 or 30 miles from Poughkeepsie.  About
> > half of the week  it carries music with no-one on mike, using a
> > proto-Shuffle known to its intimates as Murray the Machine.  These
> sessions
> > are pleasurable but frustrating, since often hear familiar songs I can't
> > recall, and more often interesting songs I'd like to have identified.)
> >
> > Yesterday evening I heard a song whose title might be "Restless", sung
> by a
> > man, in white-country style, which contained the words "grey dog" in a
> > context that referred to travel by bus.  This morning I heard a song
> whose
> > title might be "Cash on the Barrel", sung by a man, in white-country
> > style.  This song chronicles the misadventures of a travelling man who
> has
> > no money and in each stanza is told he needs to put cash on the barrel.
>  In
> > one stanza he flags a bus to get out of town, but the driver tells him he
> > needs to put. . . .  The bus is called both a Greyhound and a Grey Dog.
> > This station has been introducing me to white-country music, I listening
> > otherwise mostly to jazz and black-country music -- and classical.  So, a
> > not very well informed guess dates both these records to the late 1940s
> or
> > early-mid 1950s.
> >
> > I had urged you all to look for this station if you should ever be in its
> > broadcast range.  Since then, it has become accessible through its
> website.
> >
> > http://www.whvw.net/
> >
> > You will be likely to hear Joe Turner, Gid Tanner, Jimmie Rodgers, Al
> > Jolson, Cecil Gant, Marion Harris, Bert Williams, Louie Jordan, the Mound
> > City Blue Blowers, Erskine Hawkins, Bob Wills, among others.  I'll be
> > forever grateful for having been introduced to Gant and Harris.  Check it
> > out.
> >
> > GAT
> >
> > --
> > George A. Thompson
> > The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> > Univ. Pr., 1998..
> >
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> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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