Topic: Henry Thomas Lyrics

[Cleoma]

Any help with the lyrics to Henry Thomas' "Don't Ease Me In" would be much appreciated!  Here's what I've got so far:



Don?t Ease Me In -Henry Thomas

Chorus:  Don?t ease, dontcha ease , dontcha ease me in
Been all night coming home, Don?t ease me in (leave me here)

Sometimes I walk, and sometimes I talk
I never get drunk, great god, til the ?

Cho

I did (whipped? hit?)  my girl, a-with a single tree
She hide ?  sweet mama , watch on me?

Cho

I got a girl, she's little and short.
She leave here walkin', lovin' babe, talkin' true love talk.

Cho

I was standin' on the corner,  talkin' to my brown,
I turned around, sweet mama, I was workhouse bound.

Cho

Sez I?ve got a girl, and she working hard
She had a dress she wear sweet love (??), says it's pink and blue.

She bring me coffee, and she bring me tea
She bring me everything ?cept the jailhouse key

Cho

Got the Texas blues, I got the Texas blues
It?s all night long coming home, don?t ease me in

Said I looked down Main, old Elem there too
And all the women comin? down the lane
Got them Texas blues


[attachment deleted by admin]

[Cleoma]

Thanks so much to those who replied - and sent the Herwin LP liner notes which have lyrics and much more.  I don't have time right now but will post my revised lyrics later today.  THANK YOU Stuart and Andrew.

[Cleoma]

This is such a beautiful piece of singing, I could listen to it over and over again forever.  Here's what I've got, still a few little words that I can't quite make out.  Also, I'm still on the fence between "Cunningham" and "coming home" but I'm leaning more and more towards "Cunningham".  I'll add the section from the Herwin liner notes that talks about that.  Thanks to all who helped,
Suzy

Don?t Ease Me In

Chorus:  Don?t ease, dontcha ease , (ah) dontcha ease me in
Been all night coming home (here?) (Cunningham), Don?t ease me in (leave me here)


Sometimes I walk, and sometimes I talk
I never get drunk, great god, til my bluebirds talk.

Cho

I beat my girl, a-with a single tree
She heist up the window, sweet mama hollered ?watch over me?

Cho

I got a girl, she's little and short.
She leave here walkin', lovin' babe, talkin' true love talk.

Cho

I was standin' on the corner,  talkin' to my brown,
I turned around, sweet mama, I was workhouse bound.

Cho

Sez I?ve got a girl, and she working hard
She had a dress she wear sweet mama, says it's pink and blue.

She bring me coffee, and she bring me tea
She bring me everything ?cept the jailhouse key

Cho

Got the Texas blues, I got the Texas blues
It?s all night long coming home (Cunningham?), don?t ease me in

Sez I looked down Main, old Elem there  too
And (Said?) all the women comin? down Main
Had  them Texas blues

From the liner notes by Mack McCormick (what year???):
The parents of this song can still be heard in the flat fields along the Brazos River where the farms of the state prison system lie, some of them crowded now by the sprawling edge of Houston suburbs.  Young convicts turn out to work the fields by hand labor methods that exist practically no where else and to learn the redundant song phrases "Don't ease me in" and "All night long" with the multiple meanings that gave them special significance in  prisons where women never came and where the lights in the dormitories were never turned out.  Curiously they sing also about a man they know nothing about .  A century ago a businessman named Cunningham leased convicts from the state prison to work the sugar cane fields along the Brazos.  His name became immutably fixed in the prison song tradition, surviving in songs through generations of convict song leaders, and even cropping up on recorded blues derived from the prison tradition.  Aside from this instance provided by Henry Thomas there is Smokey Hogg's 1952 Penitentiary Blues with its dialogue between mother and convict song: 
My mama called me -
I answered "Ma'am"
"You tired of rolling -
For Cunningham?"

[Bunker Hill]

From the liner notes by Mack McCormick (what year???):

"Notes and Song Annotation (c) 1974, Mack McCormick" is what it says on my copy.

And whilst I think of it let's not forget Stefan's wondrous discography http://www.wirz.de/music/thomhfrm.htm

[uncle bud]

Leadbelly used Cunningham in the chorus for some versions of Whoa Back Buck where he wanted to avoid singing "goddamn", as he did on other versions.

Whoa, buck an? gee, by the lamb
Who made the back band, whoa, Cunningham.

Henry Thomas sounds like he sings Cummingham most of the time.

For Don't Ease Me In, I would say the second line of the chorus starts "IT'S all night, Cunningham...". In the version of the song Thomas does as Don't Leave Me Here, he sings "It's all night long".

I'm not hearing the "bluebirds talk" in verse 1. Not sure what it is but I hear "sober" in there - "till my sober [??]"

[dj]

I'm pretty sure the "bluebirds" line in verse 1 is:

I never get drunk, great God, TELL MY SOBER THOUGHTS.

[Rivers]

Re. the concurrence with Leadbelly, the weeniepedia link to the lyrics is at http://weeniecampbell.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ox_Drivin%27_Blues

That's great info on Cunningham, I was wondering about him since he popped up in this thread. Clearly an infamous character to have gone down in folklore like that. I've added an annotation to the Leadbelly lyric. Reminds me of Joe Brown using convict labor for his coal mines, cf. Julius Daniel, 99 Year Blues and Jessie Fuller's Beat It On Down The Line.

[Cleoma]

Here's my revised version, incorporating the various suggestions.  I'm not positive about "sober thoughts" but it totally works.  A singletree is a wood bar that's part of a plow, which I didn't know til today although I always wondered about the MJB song.
 
Don't Ease Me In - Henry Thomas

Don?t ease, dontcha ease , a- dontcha ease me in
It?s all night Cunningham,  Don?t ease me in

(Note: only the first verse goes  ?It?s all night Cunningham?; the chorus (and all subsequent iterations) goes ?It?s all night long Cunningham?)


Sometimes I walk, and sometime I talk
I never get drunk, great god, tell my sober thoughts


CHORUS:  Don?t ease, dontcha ease , (ah) dontcha ease me in
It?s all night long, Cunningham, Don?t ease me in (leave me here)

I beat my girl, a-with a singletree
She heist up the window, sweet mama hollered ?watch o?er me?

CHORUS

I got a girl, she's little and short.
She leave here walkin', lo(v)in' babe, talkin' true love talk.

CHORUS

I was standin' on the corner,  talkin' to my brown,
I turned around, sweet mama, I was workhouse bound.

CHORUS

Sez I?ve got a girl, and she working hard
She had a dress she wear sweet mama, says it's pink and blue.

She bring me coffee, and she bring me tea
She bring me everything ?cept the jailhouse key

CHORUS

Got the Texas blues, I got the Texas blues
It?s all night long Cunningham, don?t ease me in

Sez I looked down Main, old Elem then too
And all the women comin? down the Main, had them Texas blues.

[banjochris]

This verse:
I beat my girl, a-with a singletree
She heist up the window, sweet mama hollered ?watch o?er me?

Sounds to me like he says "sweet mama hauled her wash on me" -- like she threw a bucket on him after he hit her.
Chris

[Lyle Lofgren]

Hi, Cleoma

I think you have it mostly right in yesterday's posting. It's "Cunningham" in the chorus, very clearly in the version I was listening to. Cunningham owned the largest sugar cane plantation in Texas, and made huge amounts of money leasing prisoners to work his land. He's mentioned briefly in David M. Oshinsky's "Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice" (Free Press, 1996), which gives, in gruesome detail, the story of the continuation of slavery after the civil war.

I numbered the verses (but not the chorus) for the comments below:

1. I can't make out when he gets drunk. It sounds like "'til my bluebirds talk" to me, too, but that makes no sense. "Tell my sober thoughts" makes sense, but I can't make myself hear that. Maybe someone else has keener ears.

2. I hear "watch on me" rather than "watch over me." For those of you who did not grow up on a farm with draft horses, see http://www.pioneerequipment.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/W_clear_DTree.jpg , which shows two singletrees attached to a doubletree (also called "evener"). The hooks on the end of each singletree attach to tug chains which in turn attach to the horses' harnesses. You do not want to get beaten with a singletree.

8. I hear "Said, all the women comin' down Main" instead of "And all the women..."

Hope you have a great holiday season, and give our love to your husband, Joseph Falcon, too.

Lyle

[davet]

Hello

I have listened to the song. One verse starts I've got a girl .... . I can't hear she's little and short. I am not sure what it is though it could be 'in Illinois'. I guess it would be  a town in Texas judging by the other comments.
also one other point
I heard:  I never get drunk, thank god say my sober thoughts
Nice song.

[Lyle Lofgren]

Now that we've mostly settled on the words, does anyone know what the phrase "don't ease me in" might mean? I know about the explanation that a "natural-born easeman" is a man who has the skill to ease right into a woman's life, and incidentally get her to take care of him so he doesn't have to work. But if that's the definition used here, why the negative? I assume Cunningham has no more to do with the question than he does in other songs where he appears for no apparent reason. I checked out Bartlett's 1898 Dictionary of Americanisms and Partridge's 1940s slang dictionary. I only have "A-C" of the Dictionary of American Regional English, and I'm too lazy to go to the library to look under "E," especially if everyone else knows what it means, and I'm the only ignorant one.

Lyle

[uncle bud]

I find this explanation somewhat dubious, at least without further evidence, but for what it's worth, Stephen Calt in Barrelhouse Words defined it this way:

To entice or provoke one into playing the dozens by means of preliminary banter (Skip James [meaning his source was Skip]). This phrase is an extension of ease in, standard English meaning "to break in gently".

[Rivers]

I believe that is correct, it's the Dozens. Last verse, Little Hat Jones, Kentucky Blues:

Well I don't play the dozen and neither the ten
'Cus she keep on talkin' I'll ease ya in
Well you keep on talkin' 'till you make me mad
Well I tell you 'bout the mother that your father had
'Cus I don't play the dozen, I declare, man, and neither the ten

http://weeniecampbell.com/wiki/index.php?title=Kentucky_Blues

See also this item, courtesy the tags index, where that phrase is discussed, along with everything else you always wanted to know about the dozens: http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=2369.0

[Cleoma]

I vaguely remember something from the song "Old Jim Canaan" (where is that from??) about "if you don't play the dozens they will ease you in" (or something like that).  Can someone else correct this citation?