Hard Travellin

by Kenneth Allsop

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  ——Conversation with the Blues, Cassell, 1965.

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  I been hittin’ some hard travellin’, I thought you knowed.

  I been hittin’ some hard travellin’, way down the road.

  I been hittin’ some hard travellin’, hard ramblin’, hard gamblin’.

  I been hittin’ some hard travellin’, Lord.

  I been ridin’ them fast rattlers, I thought you knowed.

  I been ridin’ them flat wheelers, way down the road.

  I been ridin’ those dead enders, blind passengers, kickin’ up cinders.

  I been hittin’ some hard travellin’, Lord.

  Well, I been hittin’ some hard-rock minin’, I thought you knowed.

  I been leanin’ on a pressure drill, way down the road.

  Hammer flyin’, airhose suckin’,

&nbs
p; An’ six feet of mud an’ I sure been a-muckin’,

  I been hittin’ some hard travellin’, Lord.

  I been workin’ at Pittsburgh Steel, I thought you knowed.

  I been dumpin’ red-hot slag, way down the road.

  I been blastin’, I been firin’,

  I been pourin’ that red-hot iron,

  An’ I been hittin’ some hard travellin’, Lord.

  I been layin’ in a hard-rock jail, I thought you knowed.

  I been layin’ out ninety days, way down the road.

  Mean old judge, he says to me,

  ‘It’s ninety days for vagrancy.’

  An’ I been hittin’ some hard travellin’, Lord.

  Well, I been hittin’ some hard harvestin’, I thought you knowed.

  North Dakota to Kansas City, way down the road.

  Cuttin’ that wheat and a-stackin’ that hay,

  Tryin’ to make about a dollar a day.

  I been hittin’ some hard travellin’, Lord.

  I been walkin’ that Lincoln Highway, I thought you knowed.

  I been hittin’ that Sixty-six, way down the road.

  Heavy load and a worried mind,

  Lookin’ for a woman that’s hard to find,

  An’ I been hittin’ some hard travellin’, Lord.

  Woody Guthrie

  Englishman to American on trans-Atlantic liner: ’Who was it who discovered America?’

  American: ‘Christopher Columbus.’

  Englishman (later, after three days on train): ’Who was it, old boy, ‘who discovered America?’

  American: ’Christopher Columbus.’

  Englishman: ’He could hardly miss the bloody place, could he?’

  Joke on Station WWNC, Nashville

  Hobo, hobo, where did you come from?

  American children’s chant

  The lure West: how the labourers were drawn into motion. Railroad poster, 1853.

  For Mirek Vitali

  This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  Copyright © Kenneth Allsop, 1967

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

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  ISBN: 9781448206377

  eISBN: 9781448206018

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