Lyrics

Old Time Blues Digital Songbag

In a humble effort to follow in the footsteps of the great song collectors of yesteryear like John A. Lomax, Carl Sandburg, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Jack Thorp, et al, Old Time Blues presents the Old Time Blues Digital Songbag, a virtual songbook of lyrics, primarily of folk and blues interest and dating to the 1920s and 1930s, collected and transcribed by R. Connor Montgomery from primary source material (phonograph records, original sheet music, and songbooks) held within the Old Time Blues Collection.

Transcriptions of “scat” lyrics and yodels are approximate.  Guitar chords, if provided, are usually aurally identified and may not be accurate, nor the most ideal method of playing the song in question.

≡ Table of Contents ≡

  1. All-Go-Hungry Hash House
  2. Beautiful Texas
  3. Blue Yodel No. 8 (Mule Skinner Blues)
  4. Blue Yodel No. 10 (Ground Hog Rootin’ in My Back Yard)
  5. Brown’s Ferry Blues
  6. Bury Me Out on the Prairie (The Cowboy’s Lament)
  7. Death of Floyd Collins
  8. Deep Elem Blues
  9. Fire-Wood Man
  10. Franklin Roosevelt’s Back Again
  11. I’m Gonna Cry (Cryin’ Blues)
  12. In 1992
  13. In the Jailhouse Now
  14. It’s Tight Like That
  15. Jim Jackson’s Kansas City Blues
  16. Kisses
  17. Looking for a New Mama
  18. My Red-Haired Lady
  19. Nights When I Am Lonely
  20. N. R. A. Blues
  21. Penitentiary Blues
  22. See That My Grave is Kept Clean
  23. Shadowland Blues
  24. St. James Infirmary
  25. Stay in the Wagon Yard
  26. The Book on Etiquette (Etiquette Blues)
  27. The Brakeman’s Blues
  28. The Club Meeting
  29. The Little Old Sod Shanty
  30. The Match Box Blues
  31. The Mythological Blues
  32. The Preacher and the Bear
  33. True Blue Bill
  34. Waitin’ for the Evenin’ Mail
  35. Willie, the Chimney Sweeper