Once More A-Lumbering Go
DESCRIPTION: The singer calls on "all you sons of freedom" to "range the wild woods over and once more a-lumbering go." He briefly describes the work of cutting the trees, the sleighing and hunting, and the joyful return to their families
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1851 (Springer's _Forest Life and Forest Trees_, according to Gray-SongsAndBalladsOfTheMaineLumberjacks)
KEYWORDS: logger work lumbering
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,NE) Canada(West)
REFERENCES (13 citations):
Warner-TraditionalAmericanFolkSongsFromAnneAndFrankWarnerColl 31, "Once More A-Lumbering Go" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gray-SongsAndBalladsOfTheMaineLumberjacks, pp. 18-21, "The Logger's Boast" (1 text)
Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine, pp. 41-43, "The Logger's Boast" (1 text plus some fragments)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, pp. 8-9, "The Logger's Boast" (1 text)
Thompson-BodyBootsAndBritches-NewYorkStateFolktales, pp. 282-283, "Saranac River" (1 text)
Shoemaker-MountainMinstrelsyOfPennsylvania, pp. 83-85, "The Logger's Boast" (1 text) (pp. 70-71 in the 1919 edition)
Lomax/Lomax-FolkSongUSA 48, "Once More a-Lumb'ring Go" (1 text, 1 tune)
Beck-SongsOfTheMichiganLumberjacks 4, "Once More a-Lumbering Go" (1 text, 1 tune)
Beck-TheyKnewPaulBunyan, pp. 106-109, "Once More A-Lumbering Go" (1 text plus a variant stanza, 1 tune)
Beck-LoreOfTheLumberCamps 10, "Once Moe A-Lumbering Go" (1 text)
Peters-FolkSongsOutOfWisconsin, p. 85,"A-Lumbering We Will Go" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke-LumberingSongsFromTheNorthernWoods #4, "A-Lumbering We Go" (1 text, 1 tune, a mixed text starting with two stanzas of "Once More A-Lumbering Go" and continuing with a version of "Bung Yer Eye" minus the chorus)
DT, LUMBERN* LUMBRIN2*
Roud #591 and 7088
RECORDINGS:
Carl Lathrop, "Once More A-Lumbering Go" (AFS, 1938; on LC56)
Lawrence Older, "Once More A-Lumbering Go" (on LOlder01)
Pete Seeger, "Once More A-Lumbering Go" (on PeteSeeger29)
File: Wa031
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
The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.