Topic: The Panic Is On

[daddystovepipe]

Nothing has changed.....



The author of this song was Hezekiah Jenkins, a white musician,  who recorded it on 16 January 1931 in NYC. It was issued as Columbia 14585-D [on the record, his name was wrongly spelled 'Hazekiah']. In the notes to his 'Songsters and Saints Vol I' set, Paul Oliver noted that Jenkins' composition was a remodelling of an earlier theme to describe the devices used by the poor to hustle through the worst of the Depression.  The phrase 'the panic is on' had been used as a catch-phrase for earlier economic failures leading to depressions. It had been applied to the 'Panic' of 1893 when Jacob S. Coxley's 'army' of unemployed marched on Washington. Newman White quoted four 'Panic is on' fragments from 1915 and related them to the panic of 1908-09'. Jenkins' song related, of course, to the panic of 1929. [Info from Paul Oliver 'Songsters and Saints' Cambridge Uni Press 1984].

I arranged the song and added some uptodate lyrics I heard in versions by Eleonor Ellis and Dave Lippman.
I'm playing a 1925 Gibson L3, C position standard tuning but a half step down
Link to a free lesson with tab (this song should be played more widely)


Lyrics

What this world is comin' to
I sure would love to know
If they don't do something bye and bye,
The rich will live and the middle-class will die
Dog-gone, I mean the panic is on

Can't get no work, can't draw no pay,
Unemployment getting worser every day
Nothing to eat and no place to sleep,
All night long folks walkin' the street
Dog-gone, I mean the panic is on.

All the landlords done raised the rent
Folks that ain't broke is badly bent
Where they get the dough from, goodness knows
But, if they don't produce it, in the street they go
Dog-gone, I mean the panic is on

I pawned my clothes and everything,
Pawned my jewellery, watch and my ring
Pawned my razor but not my gun
So, if my luck don't change, there'll be some stealin' done
Dog-gone, I mean the panic is on.

I lost my house and my SUV
People I even lost my mp3
Now I got to pay those made me this way
So they can live and screw us all another day
Dog-gone I mean the panic is on.

I reckon those bankers should've never been bailed
They should be sweating in the county jail
If we do do something, bye an bye
We could use the Swedish model, it might fly
Dog-gone, I mean the panic is on

This recession ruined everything,
That's why I'm forced to sing
Here's a little something I want you to know
Bankers and politicians got to go
Dog-gone, I mean the panic will be gone

[sustaireblues]

Wow!
Great performance, plus lesson and lyrics?
What a gift, thank you very, very much Daddy Stovepipe!!!

[Mr.OMuck]

Great Song Carl! Perfect for the moment! I may have to "borrow" this one! Gary Davis had an instrumental called "John D. Rockefeller: He Put The Panic On" which he introduced to me by explaining just how tough things were in South Carolina right after WWI. "EEit wuz A MESS, I'm TELLIN' you!" He then got into detailing the increase in the price of flour & meal.

[slideaway]

LOVE IT! CB aint no dead language!

[Rivers]

Very cool Carl, that one's a keeper. The line with the SUV really caught my attention, up until then I just plain assumed it was a song transcribed from a Twenties recording that I'd never heard before. Then I went back and read your notes, which explained it nicely. There are some nice changes in there I will have to steal.

Hoping not to take the thread too far off topic. Mr O'Muck, do you have more verses for Rev. Gary Davis's song "John D. Rockefeller Put The Panic On"? The snippet on Angels & Demons is tantalizingly short. I'd like to play it but have so far failed to find the rest of the lyrics, or another recording of it, which I'm sure must be out there somewhere.

[uncle bud]

There's a 6-minute version of "John D Rockefeller Put the Panic On" on At Home and At Church, from Stefan Grossman's Workshop. Alas, it's an instrumental version. Still great, just not if you're looking for lyrics.

[Michael Cardenas]

Carl come back!

[Mr.OMuck]

Alas Rev. Davis played it as an instrumental only chiming in vocally with "he put the panic on" in the appropriate place to accentuate the way the melody mimicked the scan of the words.