Falling of the Pine

DESCRIPTION: Speaker tells of working in lumber camps: "When daylight is a-breakin'/From our slumbers we awaken/When our breakfast we have taken/Our axes we will grind...And the woods we'll make to ring/By the falling of the pine"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (Rickaby-BalladsAndSongsOfTheShantyBoy; Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine)
KEYWORDS: recitation lumbering work logger nonballad
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW) Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Rickaby-BalladsAndSongsOfTheShantyBoy 17, "The Falling of the Pine" (1 text, 1 tune)
Rickaby/Dykstra/Leary-PineryBoys-SongsSongcatchingInLumberjackEra 17, "The Falling of the Pine" (1 text, 1 tune)
Beck-SongsOfTheMichiganLumberjacks 10, "Falling of the Pine" (1 text)
Beck-LoreOfTheLumberCamps 37, "Falling of the Pine" (1 text)
Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine, pp. 17-20, "The Falling of the Pine" (1 text)
Dean-FlyingCloud, pp. 73-74, "The Falling of the Pine (Square Timber Logging)" (1 text)
Fowke-LumberingSongsFromTheNorthernWoods #3, "The Falling of the Pine" (1 fragment, tune referenced)
Shoemaker-MountainMinstrelsyOfPennsylvania, pp. 202-204, "The Falling of the Pine" (1 text)
MidwestFolklore, Ivan H. Watson, "Folk Singing on Beaver Island," Volume 2, Number 4 (Winter 1952), p. 247, "The Falling of the Pine" (reference only)
ST Be010 (Partial)
Roud #4560
RECORDINGS:
Martin McManus, "The Falling of the Pine" (on Lumber01)
Lester Wells, "The Falling of the Pine" (AFS, 1938; on LC56)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Lumber Camp Song" (theme) and references there
cf. "Driving Saw-Logs on the Plover" (tune)
NOTES [61 words]: Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine caim this as the second-oldest woods song known. They offer no justification for this claim. Some of their songs they date based on internal dates, or the date of the event referred to, which is of course very dubious. Neither applies in this case. But the song does appear to be fairly old, since the lumbermen use axes, not saws. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: Be010

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