BALLADIN' MAN
(learned from Tom Juster)
Oh, the balladin' man has a way to go
With his ballads to be sung
He's got to die with a man at the end of a rope
And know a house called the Risin' Sun
He's got to know about tars and spars and bars
And ships that sail down on the sea
He's got to meet a fool from Liverpool
And sail on the high Barbaree
He's got to know how to drink his whisky straight
Drink it from the bottle on down
He's got to know a woman by the name of Kate
When he rolls into town,
When he rolls into town.
He's got to know about love and apron strings
Blue ribbons and black hair
Get a pretty little word from a pretty little bird
To tell her how he'll care.
He's got to know two lips of vivid red,
Know two eyes of blue,
He's got to lay down and die for a lover passin' by
And go a-courting with a hole in his shoe.
(Repeat first verse)
He's got to know a city that'll reach to the sky,
Know a valley and a plain,
He's got to feel the heat of the desert beat
And soak in the Panama rain
He's got to swing a hammer from the hip on down
Listen to the cold steel ring
He's got to hammer a jack with the sweat down his back
And then get up and sing,
And then get up and sing.
He's got to know a city by the name of Dodge,
In eighteen ninety-one
He's got to walk up the alley to the Black Ace saloon
Slappin' leather in the noonday sun.
He's got to know a coward by the name of Ford,
Have two children and a wife,
He's got to hang like a picture and die like a bum
With a bullet in the middle of his life.
(repeat first verse)
He's got to know hardtack and sourdough
Trap on an Indian trail
He's got to holler and yell while cuttin' up hell
And spend Saturday nights in jail
He's got to camp along the Rio Grande
Or down in New Orleans
He's got to gape and stare at the jazz in the air
A-makin' with the streetwalkin' queens,
A-makin' with the streetwalkin' queens.
He's got to be a personal friend to a president,
Know a senator too,
He's got to know more about this goddam world
Than either me or you,
Because a balladin' man has got a way to go
With his ballads to be sung
He's got to die with a man at the end of a rope
And know a house called the Risin' Sun.
(from miriam berg's folksong collection)