Poor Rail Road Boys

DESCRIPTION: "Poor rail road boys ain't got no home, He's here today, tomorrow gone." "I looked at the sun, and the sun was low, I said to the boss man, 'I must go.'" "...give me my time. He clapped his hands and gave me a dime." "One of these... my name'll be called"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (McNeil-SouthernMountainFolksong)
KEYWORDS: railroading work hardtimes nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
McNeil-SouthernMountainFolksong, pp. 160-164, "Roll On, John, Poor Rail Road Boys" (4 texts, 2 tunes, of which at least the last is "Roll On, John"; the others might be "Take This Hammer" or a mixture)
Roud #16845
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Take This Hammer" (lyrics) and references there
NOTES [53 words]: This is one of the great amorphous mass of railroad songs that are almost unclassifiable; McNeil, I think, deliberately set out to offer hard-to-file variants. If you feel like re-classifying all this stuff, be my guess; my classification differs from Roud's, and in this case, I make no claim of being more correct. - RBW
Last updated in version 4.2
File: MSMF160

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography