Posted by John Miller on July 22, 2002, 11:54 am
--Previous Message--
: Here's my take on this monster, which has given
: me a bad case of earstrain:
: Now looky Mrs Hill said she taken ...
: ... done broke your heart
: Put you out told you to go
: You'll never come back to her house no more
: Now you' here crying throw me down
: You know you' the foolishest man in town
: You keep on talking Mrs Hill ...
: Said you'll never get ...
: You can keep on talking little darling babe
: ut don't need no airy man
: I want these brownses on the ... train
: To thoroughly understand
: That you can bring me my wood you can bring
: me my food
: You can iron my shirts you can dress my
: clothes
: You can get yourself together you' compared
: with the weather
: I don't need no airy man
: Now there was an old lady in a ...
: ... just the other day
: She walked all out on State Street
: Just to pass the time away
: Said she walked to the hoss track darling
: babe
: And these is the words she say
: Gonna smoke her [rum hop] gonna drink her tea
: Every time I bring her here for me
: --Previous Message--
: I recently got a banjo-guitar, and would like
: to do Papa Charlie Jackson"s
: "Airy Man Blues", since it
: sounds so great on banjo-guitar. I would
: appreciate any help with the lyrics on it,
: I find the verses pretty much
: unintelligible on all the re-issues
: versions of it I have heard. Thanks for
: any help with this.
: John Miller
: :
:Hi Ari,
Thanks for taking the time on it. There's more good stuff there. It strikes me that one of the really difficult things about transcribing lyrics on a song like this (apart from the sound quality) is that you are dealing with a 16-bar form, 16 bar verse and 16 bar chorus. When you combine the long form with Papa Charlie's propensity for jivey wordplay and narrative lyrics, you end up with a transcribing problem of some real difficulty. Another cool one of his that has great , but hard-to-hear lyrics is his 8-bar "Coffee Pot Blues", which combines more narrative lyrics with one of the jumpingest 8-bar accompaniments ever.
Hi to Jon W., I don't know how to convince Revenant to undertake such big projects--I think they have to be in love with the artist and think the project is significant. Otherwise it is difficult to justify the effort. I sort of feel like Willie McTell and Blake are not in as much need of this as are Lemon and Papa Charlie, because most of their stuff (McTell and Blake's) is available in fairly hearable form now.
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