"Grey dog" = "Greyhound bus"

Thu Jun 5 19:46:54 UTC 2014

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

(The silver lining is that I was right about '56 being early for "the
joint" to be in general pop culture.)

PS:  Exclamation is a Charlie Brown groan, not a pirate gloat.

JL

On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 3:23 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
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: "Grey dog" = "Greyhound bus"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jun 5, 2014, at 3:03 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > Note 1956 ex. of "the joint" (jail or prison), pretty early for general
> pop
> > culture.
> >
> > (Earlier in joint glossaries. See HDAS.)
> >
> > JL
>
> My bad.  This was evidently one of Dolly's emendations to avoid the
> "man"/"can" rhyme.  The original first verse was actually:
>
> Got in a little trouble at the county seat
>                                               G7     C
> Lord they put me in the jailhouse for loafing on the street
>
> When the judge heard the verdict I was a guilty man
>                                      G7          C
> He said forty-five dollars or thirty days in the can
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDbylmeOdaY
>
>
> Sorry for the false lead.
>
> LH
>
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 2:40 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> > 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: "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..
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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