American Folk Songs- Wanderers
Folks Songs are the building blocks of modern music. Hobo and railroad songs are often the most well known.
The music of wandering travelers and railroad hobos is all but forgotten in this age of rock and roll. Much of our modern music has its roots in traditional folk singing.
Most American Folk Songs have all but died out. Reserved to the libraries and decaying wax cylinders of yesteryear, as a country we have in turn forgotten much of our rich heritage. Of the American folk songs that still survive, perhaps the most familiar are the songs of the hobo, the wandering railroad traveler drifting from town to town in the back of an empty railroad box car. Thanks to the efforts of music historian Alan Lomax we can still listen to and honor these purely American pieces of folk art.
The life of a hobo was truly a world of its own. Freedom, adventure, and fear were always just a breath away from each other. In the late 1800's it is estimated that nearly 60,000 hobos were riding the rails of the United States. By the time of the Great Depression that number had grown to nearly a million. Daring to jump on a moving train that could just as easily slice you in half, hobos found dozens of ways to conceal themselves for their cross country travels. These travels and the adventures that accompanied them gave rise to some of the most familiar tunes of American folk music.
She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain-
Still sung as a children's tune in schools throughout the United States, She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain was a revision of a hymn titled Old Ship Of Zion. Perhaps the most well known and easiest to sing of all railroad folk songs, the lyrics are
The Wabash Cannonball-
A hobo ballade and remake of the folk song Uncle Sam's Farm. The song tells the story of a fictional train said to run on track made of whole redwood trees and so fast that even after coming to a stop it was still going sixty-five miles and hour. One day the train was pushed so fast that it jumped off it's track and took off for the sky where even today it makes stops between the stars.
The Big Rock Candy Mountain-
Written by a hobo named Mac McClintock, Big Rock Candy Mountain recently saw a rebirth being used in the hit movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou. The song in its original for tells the story of a less than honest "jocker" that tricked a simple country boy away from his home in search of mythical land of lemonade springs and other goodies.
Wand'rin-
Considered by many to be one of the finest hobo songs ever written it tells the story of a wandering tramp and his adventures from New York City to the Golden Gate. In later years the rhythms and melodies of Wand'rin' have been reworked into such modern tunes as Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis Presley.
