Rambling Round

DESCRIPTION: Singer describes rambling around cities and towns, and his life as a migrant fruit picker. He wishes he could settle down, but "I am just a refugee/As I go rambling round, boys."
AUTHOR: Woody Guthrie
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Columbia River collection)
KEYWORDS: loneliness rambling work worker migrant
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook, p. 118, "Rambling Blues" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, GORAMB
ADDITIONAL: Woody Guthrie, __Roll On Columbia: The Columbia River Collection_, collected and edited by Bill Murlin, Sing Out Publications, 1991, pp. 36-37, " Ramblin' Round" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #17658
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Goodnight, Irene" (tune)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Rambling Round Your City
As I Go Rambling 'Round
NOTES [86 words]: This song verges on the status of an autobiography of Woody Guthrie, and to the best of my knowledge has never been found in tradition.
This is one of Woody's Columbia River ballads, from 1941, but most people aren't aware of this because it is not at all specific to the Columbia or the Bonneville Power Administration. It is in any case likely that he wrote it earlier and simply submitted it along with the other Columbia River songs.
The tune is an adaption of Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter's "Goodnight Irene." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: CSW118

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