River Drivers' Song

DESCRIPTION: Life in a North Woods lumber-camp, and some of the characters that might be met there. Chorus: "Roll, you drivers, roll/Roll, you heroes, roll/Roll all day, no sugar in your tay/while working for the White Boys' rollway."
AUTHOR: reportedly Jerome Ford, father of singer Warde Ford, and his friend Kimball
EARLIEST DATE: 1956 (USWolfRiver); reportedly written c. 1905
KEYWORDS: work lumbering moniker derivative food
FOUND IN: US(MW)
Roud #5752
RECORDINGS:
Warde Ford, "River Drivers' Song" (on USWolfRiver)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill" (lyrics)
NOTES [36 words]: A variant of "Drill Ye Tarriers, Drill." In lumber-camps. a "rollway" was a flattened-out patch of ground, used for skidding cut logs into the water. In the recording the singer pronounces "White" as "Wait." - (PJS)
Last updated in version 6.7
File: RcRiDriS

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