Don't You Hear My Hammer Ringing

DESCRIPTION: Chain-gang work song, with chorus line, "Oh don't you hear my hammer ringing?" The song complains about present work conditions, describes the career of Noah, and talks about his hammer
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1963
KEYWORDS: work worksong chaingang Bible floatingverses
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Courlander-NegroFolkMusic, pp. 99-101, (no title) (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Harold Courlander, _A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore_, Crown Publishers, 1976, pp. 406-407, "Don't You Hear My Hammer Ringing" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Take This Hammer" (lyrics)
cf. "Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep" (lyrics)
cf. "Oh, Lord, How Long" (lyrics)
cf. "Hammer Ring"
NOTES [43 words]: Courlander gives this as a single song, but it appears to me to be a combination of other songs. Very likely the gang leader just assembled the text from other songs (with a little glue of his own); it probably does not exist in tradition as an entity. - RBW
Last updated in version 3.5
File: CNFM099

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