No More Good Time in the World For Me

DESCRIPTION: A composite lament of a man serving a life term. He laments his time on the Brazos, tells a girl not to wait, thinks about the time ahead of him, wishes he had a buddy or could escape, and says he will be hard to find if he does escape
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1965 (recorded from J. B. Smith by Jackson)
KEYWORDS: prison hardtimes separation
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Jackson-WakeUpDeadMan, pp. 147-151,"No More Good Times in the World For Me" (1 text plus a fragment, both from the same informant; 1 tune)
NOTES [65 words]: This song, and several others by J. B. Smith, brilliantly illustrates the problem of classifying Black prison songs. This is clearly a personal song by Smith, who was serving a life term for killing his girlfriend, but the themes and many of the words come from other songs. Given the extent of Smith's rewriting, I classified it separately, but there is no good way to file such things. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: JDM147

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