Songs

Hey Nelly, Nelly

78 Comments

Last year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day we had a discussion about songs and performers who spoke to the cause of civil rights. I posted a video of a Mavis Staples song and some well-known names like Nina Simone, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were mentioned.

Near the end of the string, Barbara in Robbinsdale came up with this unexpected one – Shawn Phillips, and a folk song I had never heard before – Hey Nelly, Nelly. BiR was kind enough to give us the words, also.

Hey Nelly Nelly, come to the window
Hey Nelly Nelly look at what I see
He’s riding into town on a sway back mule
Got a tall black hat and he looks like a fool
He sure is talkin’ like he’s been to school
And it’s 1853

Hey Nelly Nelly, listen what he’s sayin’
Hey Nelly Nelly, he says it’s gettin’ late
And he says them black folks should all be free
To walk around the same as you and me
He’s talkin’ ’bout a thing he calls democracy
And it’s 1858

Hey Nelly Nelly hear the band a playing
Hey Nelly Nelly, hand me down my gun
“Cause the men are cheerin’ and the boys are too
They’re all puttin’ on their coats of blue
I can’t sit around here and talk to you
“Cause it’s 1861

Hey Nelly Nelly, Come to the window
Hey Nelly Nelly, I’ve come back alive
My coat of blue is stained with red
And the man in the tall black hat is dead
We sure will remember all the things he said
In 1865

Hey Nelly Nelly, come to the window
Hey Nelly Nelly, look at what I see
I see white folks and colored walkin’ side by side
They’re walkin’ in a column that’s a century wide
It’s still a long and a hard and a bloody ride
In 1963

I was a fan of this song before it even started because half the writing credit goes to Shel Silverstein. You can see that sly, bald devil at work as the lyrics set in context the long, long process of moving towards justice. And he gets Abe Lincoln into the starring role without ever mentioning his name. Ah, the power of a hat.

There are few things less fashionable today than earnest folk songs about changing the world, and there are even fewer songs that mention historic dates in a way that would be meaningful to anybody. “Hey Nelly Nelly” manages to do both, and it would be completely unknown today if not for a handful of recordings by Judy Collins. Still, you have to admire Silverstein and co-writer Jim Friedman for giving it a try.

What song do you know that almost no one else remembers?

78 thoughts on “Hey Nelly, Nelly”

  1. richie havens was a favorite.i saw him play at the depot (now 1st ave) and he was just one of those guys who would sit and tell a story for a long tie and then play the song and then tell another sotory and it was relaxing and enjoyable and it went on for 3 plus hours. i saw him at the guthrie a couple of years ago and he was a blast form the past. his songs are still about freedom and he stills tells wonderful stories before he sings the songs. i lost track of him for a while and only heard him doing maxwell house commercials. he must have lost favor with the record companies and we didnt have goggle and you tube to follow our non top 40 clear channel artists. he is there now and it looks like there ar e abunch of albums i can check in on him with. happy mlk day all,

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    3. I like Richie Havens, too. I especially like his version of “Here Comes the Sun” but “I Can’t Make It Anymore” is my favorite.

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  2. Happy MLK Day, dear baboons. I’m sorry to have abandoned you for days, as I have been migrating from the basement of my home to the upstairs. It’s a long story. For days I haven’t had a working computer while I and my new workman friend, Eddie from Kooba, dealt with various issues. I didn’t mean to be rude by being silent.

    A song that has haunted me ever since I heard it is sung by semi-obscure folk artist, Cormac McCarthy. He sings several wonderful songs, but the one that makes me weep is “When My Boat is Built Again.” It is sheer poetry. If you have heard it you are an OLD patron of TLGMS. This song is as literate as it is melodic. And the song is such a pure and heartfelt confession about past alcoholism that I have to believe McCarthy once fought that battle himself.

    Then there is “Calling All Angels,” possibly the most moving song I’ve ever heard. The Wailin’ Jennys have a version of it that just proves the superiority of the original, performed by Jane Siberry and KD Lang. (Try to imagine a song where KD Lang is the backup singer!) I find this song as wise as it is gorgeous (if I understand it correctly). The album it comes from an album with the confusing title of, “When I Was a Boy,” This Jane Siberry recording is avant garde and occasionally difficult. And yet this song alone establishes Siberry among the most sublime singer/songwriters in the history of recorded music.

    Then there is one I always suspected Dale liked: “Between Girl and Gone,” by Karen Savoca (and found on a compilation album recorded at the Black Sheep). No song I ever heard is as precise and powerful at capturing the agony of a broken heart as this one. Once again, this is a song that could stand on its own as poetry. I honestly think you won’t “get it” if you have not had your heart broken. If you have, listen closely and see if this song isn’t an amazing evocation of the horrible moment when you realize that your romance is doomed AND that life without it is inconceivable. There you are: stuck between girl and gone, and that is nowhere you ever wanted to be.

    I could go on for pages and pages! I’ll stop with a song nobody reading this blog ever heard, I’m quite sure: “A Hymn for Jackson.” Leo Kottke played it in every concert in the 1970s. It was a thrilling and rapturous instrumental he wrote for a friend’s wedding. Some creep listened to the song, learned to play it and then copyrighted it under his name. That meant that Leo wasn’t allowed to play his own composition without paying royalties. Leo stole back tiny passages of his hymn for his buddy, putting them in a song called “Prodigal Grave.” If you know the hymn, you can hear it in this tune, but it has virtually none of the sweep and enchantment of the original.

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  3. Rise and Shine Baboons:

    My father had a collection of weird songs for singing in the car or at times of exuberant energy:

    “The Cow Kicked Nellie in the Belly in the Barn
    She really didn’t mean her any harm”

    “The Old Grey Mare she ain’t what she used to be
    Ain’t what she used to be
    Ain’t what she used to be.
    The Old Grey Mare she ain’t what she used to be
    Many long years ago
    Many long years ago.
    The Old Grey Mare she aint what she used to be
    MANY LONG YEARS AGO.”

    Comet will make your teeth turn green..

    These were entertaining to small children, embarrassing to teenagers, and of no useful social value as opposed to BiR’s song listed above. Never-the-less, this is my intellectual estate.

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    1. Jacque, I remember some of those songs for children including “The Old Grey Mare”. I also remember some songs that were used in the music program in my grade school that were really good and I don’t how they managed to be included there back in the early 50s when there was very little interest in folk music and such things. One of the songs we sang was the spiritual “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”. Another was “Some Times I Feel Like a Motherless Child”.

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    2. Jacque, I think your dad, my dad and my best friend’s dad were cut from the same cloth. Between my dad and my best friend’s dad I learned classics like “On Top of Spaghetti” and “Lydia the Tattooed Lady.” Also “The Old Grey Mare” and a few other ditties of similar ilk.

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      1. Yes they do sound alike. I’d forgotten the Spaghetti song. But while I was walking this a.m. I also remembered his rendition of “There is a Freckle on her Butt” which apparently only emerged when he came out of anesthesia for surgery!

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    3. Jacque, was The Billboard Song one of them? No redeeming social value in that one either, but fun anyway. Here are the lyrics:

      As I was walkin’ down the street a billboard caught my eye
      The advertisements listed there would make you laugh and cry.
      The signs were torn and tattered from a storm the night before,
      And as I read the things it said, why this is what I saw:

      Smoke Coca-cola cigarettes, Drink Wrigley’s spearmint beer
      Ken-L-Ration dog food keeps your wife’s complexion clear
      Chew chocolate covered moth balls, they always satisfy
      Brush your teeth with Lifebuoy soap and watch the suds go by!

      Well, I recovered from the shock, I went upon my way,
      I’d gone no further than a block when what to my dismay
      Another billboard caught my eye and like the one before
      the wind and rain had done it’s work, ’cause this is what I saw:

      Take your next vacation in a brand-new Frigidaire,
      Learn to play piano in your winter underwear
      Simonize your baby with a Hershey’s candy bar,
      See the difference that Drano makes in all the movie stars!

      O doctor’s prove that baby’s shouldn’t smoke ’till they are 3
      People over 35 take baths in Lipton’s tea
      You can make this country a better place today
      Just buy and copy of this song and throw it far away!

      Here it is, sung by Homer and Jethro:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrt7uAQPXL4&feature=related

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      1. This is wonderful. But no I had not heard this before. It’s great. We used to watch for the “Brill Cream” signs (those tiny, tiny roadside billboards) and chant those until the next set came along.

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    4. My dad always sings parts of songs, the most memorable being Slow Boat to China, which he sings when he is ready to leave the house and is waiting for my mother to also be ready to go. Most of his songs are from the 30’s and 40’s.

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  4. Good morning to all. A favorite of mine that probably is not too widely know is the song Black, Brown and White by Big Bill Broonzy. I was able to find it on the the internet and copy part of it below. This song was on one of the first blues records I bought when I first became aquainted with blues music in 1959, the year I graduated from high school.

    If you’re black and gotta work for livin’,
    Now, this is what they will say to you,
    They says: “If you was white,
    You’s alright,
    If you was brown,
    Stick around,
    But if you’s black, oh, brother,
    Get back, get back, get back.”

    I was in a place one night,
    They was all havin’ fun,
    They was all buyin’ beer and wine,
    But they would not sell me none.
    They said: “If you was white,
    You’s alright,
    If you was brown,
    You could stick around,
    But as you’s black, hmm, hmm, brother,
    Get back, get back, get back.”

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  5. On this blog the definition of a song that you know and nobody else does pushes the edges. In most settings virtually anything from the LGMS would fit the bill.

    There is a song I heard just once at the Namelesss Coffeehouse in Harvard Square. I don’t recall if it was sung by Rosalie Sorrels or someone else. Reading the intro is essential before listening.

    All right, it’s 5:30 in the morning. That kid has not quit
    howling now for six hours. You’re getting sort of desperate,
    breaking out into a cold sweat because you know that all those
    other kids are going to get up in about another half hour and
    they’re going to demand cereal and peanut sandwiches and milk.
    And you forgot to get milk. Oh, God. All the paregoric is gone.
    It’s gone because you drank it. Things are getting awful bad and
    you need something else. Every culture’s got one: it’s the
    hostile baby-rocking song. You just can’t keep all that stuff
    bottled up inside yourself. You need to let it out some way, or
    you’d get strange . . . punch the baby in the mouth . . . and you
    can’t do that. You’d get an awful big ticket for it, and it
    makes you feel lousy. So you take that baby and you rock it
    firmly, smile sweetly . . . and you sing the hostile baby-rocking
    song:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW_TtYN9Cjw

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    1. I know that song which really got to me because one of my daughters had a lot of trouble getting to sleep at night. I know exactly what Rosalie Sorrels is singing about. I think it is a great song.

      Rosaiie is a wonderful singer and song writer and I was very please to get a chance to hear her many years ago at the old Coffee House Extempore on the West Bank in Minneapolis. I don’t know if I spelled the name of that coffee house correctly. Steve and some of the other Babooners probably know about that old coffee house that was part of the West Bank scene many years ago and was upstairs above the outdoor equipment store.

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      7. Steve I have a quibble with “the glory days” of coffeehouses. Surely you just mean to point out that the Scholar preceded the Extemp? I’m sure it was a wonderful place to listen to the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Leo Kottke, Simon and Garfunkel, and Dylan when he was still Robert Zimmerman before they became well known. I guess that I’d argue that coffeehouses may not have reached their glory days yet.

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  6. Here’s one that I used to listen to on WEBC 560 AM in Duluth. I don’t even hear this played on those ‘Saturday night at the 70’s’ types of shows…

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  7. I knew we were in for an interesting and eclectic selection when I read Dale’s query of the day, and you have not disappointed, baboons. I love all the choices. I agree with Beth-Ann, in this group it would be pretty hard to find one obscure song that no one had heard.

    Bert Jansch was a performer that you don’t hear much anymore, and that’s a shame. One for Jo is favorite of mine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAuHUOfaWqY&feature=related

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  8. If you want to hear some songs picked out for MLK day by Mike Pengera, he is in the middle of playing them this hour on Radio Heartland.

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  9. An old friend of mine, Bix, wrote the best song I’ve ever heard and I mean that. Those of us who participated in the old Bothy Folk Club in Mankato and in some bonfires and jams over the years have heard him play and sing this song. Some of us have encouraged him to record it or at least get it copyrighted because it really is a very good song. I’ve played it and sang it with him many times, but probably not often enough to get all the words right. It’s his song anyway, so I’m reluctant to put the whole thing out there for all the world to see. It’s not on YouTube or any CD that I know of. He still plays it live, with his friends in the band The Organic Cowboys, in Mankato from time to time. I’ll only give the chorus:

    Don’t care if you’re tall and thin
    Or short and fat
    Don’t care if you’re Republican or a Democrat
    You say you don’t need anybody to share your flat
    You can win the rat race but you’ll still be a rat
    And all that money
    Don’t mean a thing
    It’s love makes people wanna laugh and sing
    There’s just one thing you can’t get too much of
    Oh, let me tell you people, everybody needs love.
    By Dean Bixenman

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    1. That song lyric, Krista, and the calling All Angels song posted by Steve remind me of a song that probably is not heard too often on most radio shows, Give Yourself to Love by Kate Wolf. Of course, it was a favorite on TLGMS and I expect that Jasper and Mike Pengra play it on Radio Heartland.

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  10. One of the funny things about having kids is when they “discover” things that are old hat to you. I know that middle daughter would play some songs and be surprised that I knew them, but I can’t remember specific songs. I do remember when youngest daughter was listening to a song on the computer a few years ago and said to me, “Isn’t this a cool song, Mom? Listen to this.” It was “Sixteen Tons” – the song that has a refrain “I owe my soul to the company store.” She was amazed when I sang along. “You KNOW this song????” Um, yeah, that song was old when I was young – I remember that the Weavers sang it and the Weavers are from a Long Time Ago. She could hardly believe it.

    I’ve listened to a lot of Gordon Bok – and the trio Bok, Muir, Trickett – over the years. Not many people that I know are aware of him. I don’t think he is on youtube, but two of my favorite songs that he sings are “Trochus Boats” and “Come by the Hills.”

    Lately I’ve rediscovered Archie Fisher, another relatively unknown musician. I never, never get tired of “Borderlands” and “Lassie o’ the Mornin'” is beautiful.

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      1. Archie performed last year at the Celtic Junction in St. Paul. Every local musician who sings and plays Celtic music was in the audience that night. A rare treat to hear him live.

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  11. Greetings! When we were little, I remember my father had this old album of cowboy songs. I have no idea who sang them — it was a lone man’s plaintive voice with little accompaniment — maybe just a guitar and a few other instruments. I heard “The Old Rugged Cross” and a couple other religious songs and some yodeling. But our favorite song was this one:

    “Whiskey, rye whiskey — whiskey, I cry,
    If I don’t get a rye whiskey, I surely will die.
    Ooooh-wo-ho-wa-hoo. Yee ha”
    {several hiccups}, etc., etc.

    That’s all I remember. The cowboy singer would do some hiccups, yodel a bit more and then sing the next verse. We thought it was absolutely hysterical and would of course, act it out. My dad was probably not amused by our antics, as he enjoyed the quiet simplicity of the music and singing. But I’m quite sure it was HIS album.

    Another obscure group my oldest sister discovered was a group called the Sorry Muthas (unsure of spelling — like “mothers” with an accent). There was just the one album, but they slyly called it Volume III Greatest Hits or something like that to fool the musicologists. I remember “give me a train with an all night bar, wherever I go, I won’t be too far; come on and rock me to sleep in a Pullman car, I’m goin’ to ride those trains again.” It was fun, folksy music.

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      1. You can read about The Sorry Muthas in a book by Cyn Collins called West Bank Boggie that covers the music scene on the West Bank in Minneapolis starting in the 60s.
        A CD ithat comes with the book includes The Sorry Muthas. I could tell you more if I hadn’t loaned out my copy of this book..

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  12. I don’t know how to embed anything, but will provide the link to just about the most touching song I’ve heard in many years. I first heard it as background music to a dreadful ASPCA commercial, then later as the theme song to a movie about a love affair ended too soon from brain cancer:

    It’s called “Answer”. As to a song absolutely no one’s heard of, that would be the only tune ever
    written for a “Nancy” (my name) by Frank Sinatra (for his first wife & daughter). Actually, it’s called “Nancy With the Laughing Face”.

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      1. the embedding seems to be working well today – i embedded for the first time, but the weird thing was i was trying to embed a different song than the one that actually got embedded. good job, crystalbay.

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  15. My father used to gather us for “Songfests” while he played ukulele and had several fun novelty songs – It Was Only an Old Beer Bottle, King of Caractacus, There’s a Whole in the Bottom of the Sea, Desperado (not the Eagles) but my favorite was the Whizzfish Song. My brother did an internet search and found other children of fathers who introduced the song and limited the singing to once a year. It was fascinating to find others who cherished it the way we did. People posted different lyrics and some midi files with different (WRONG, in my book) melodies.

    On the swaying limb of a rubber tree, ten thousand miles away
    On the banks of the Hula river in far off Uruguay
    There sits a nervous monkey, his eyes with fear agleam
    His tail is hanging gently within the limpid stream

    And every 19 seconds, he jerks it through the air
    With a South American whiz fish a’dangling helpless there
    But the jaws of the hungry whizfish are hard on a tender tail
    and as he sits there fishing you can hear the monkey wail:

    CHORUS
    “Oh shades of Isaak Walton is that another bite?
    If I didn’t feel so hungry, I’d quit this job tonight
    But I love a toasted whizfish, though it’s bite drives me insane
    and I do so wish to catch that fish that I manage to stand the pain”

    Now one fine day a jummafish with a jaw 6 feet by 9
    Who happened to paddle nearby; took hold of the monkey’s line
    He started down the river, quite unconcernedly
    While the monkey screamed and chattered and clung to the rubber tree

    The tree stretched like a garter, a dozen miles or so
    ‘Til the fish let go and the monkey flew like an arrow from a bow
    They say he’s still a-flyin and if you care to try
    You can hear him softly murmur as he whistles through the sky:

    CHORUS

    Lisa of Minneapolis (longtime fan, shorttime baboon)

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    1. Welcome Lisa, stb. (Or welcome back, if you’ve posted before…)

      So this one reminds me of Three Little Fishies(I think that’s the title) from the early 50s probably:
      “Down in the meadow in a little bitty pool
      Swam three little fishies and a mama fishie too
      ‘Swim’ said the mama fishie, ‘Swim if you can’
      And they swam and they swam all over the dam
      Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
      Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
      Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
      And they swam and they swam all over the dam.”
      etc.

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    2. Lisa, welcome. Have never heard of ANY of the songs you mentioned, except possibly Desperado. How did you father learn them? By listening to recordings or from written music?

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  16. There were a number of songs I thought no one else remembered, til I heard them on The Late Great Morning Show. The first time I requested something (in the late 80s), I’m an Old Cowhand (Bing Crosby version) I was absolutely astounded when Dale and Jim Ed played it. And then Summertime (Summertime Sum- Sum- Summertime) later on, and I know there were more…

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  17. p.s. Thanks for posting the lyrics to Hey Nellie Nellie, Dale. It is one song that moves me to tears every time I really listen to iit.

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  18. Thanks for the warm welcome! I knew you ‘boons were a terrific bunch.
    Three Little FIshies – great song as are others mentioned here.

    I wish I knew where my father got his songs. I suspect it might have been from college. My brother found out about a book (or series) called “Songfest” and since my father called our sing-alongs “songfests”, we suspect some may have come from there.
    Here’s his Desperado. I have actually met someone who knows the song although she pronounces desperado to rhyme with Colorado, where we pronounced desperado to rhyme with tornado (see the chorus).
    He was a desperado from the wild and woolly West,
    He came into Chicago just to give the West a rest.
    He wore a big sombrero and a gun beneath his
    And everywhere he went he gave his war whoop.

    cho: He was a brave, bold, man and a desperado,
    From Cripple Creek, way down in Colorado,
    And he walked around like a big tornado,
    And everywhere he went he gave his war whoop!

    He went to Coney Island just to take in all the sights,
    He saw the hootchie-kootchie and the girls dressed up in tights
    He got so darned excited that he shot out all the lights,
    And everywhere he went he gave his war whoop.

    A great big fat policeman was a-walking down his beat,
    He saw this desperado come a-walking down the street.
    He grabbed him by the whiskers, and he grabbed him by the seat
    And threw him where he wouldn’t give his war whoop.

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    1. Well that settles it, it’s not the Desperado that I’m familiar with. 100% of the songs you listed, Lisa, I have never heard. I look forward to your contributions to the blog. Sure you’ll have a lot of interesting things to contribute.

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  19. In the 1960’s I belonged to a fraternity at the U. of Chi. In the group were three very talented musicians who played guitar and one who also played banjo. Our wild parties consisted of standing in a big circle and singing. One of the three died in Viet Nam, something I can barely face yet today. Standing and reading his name in the wall, ah me. Sad, sad, sad. His name was Hap, Pat Patterson, really. But Hap for his nature. Somehow MLK Day takes me sadly back to the 60’s. For a variety of reasons I do not sing, cannot really, well, or physically able because of throat issues. But singing will never be that again. (I did not start this paragraph meaning totake me down this sad path, but, oh, well.)

    Out of that group of about a dozen guys who did that singing, only I do not have a doctorate. The guitar and banjo guy, another Iowa person, actually, got a PhD in geobiology and is an expert in xenogeobiology. He worked on the NASA Mars explorer program for years. He is now at USC. Here’s the point, this morning he contacted me through facebook. He and his second wife, I do not know her, adopted three girls (some story there I do not know, got to get it from him). She, he says, plays and sings very well. They are driving this summer to Milwaukee where he taught for awhile and where his wife is from. And they are going to see his mother alive at 90 in West Liberty. He is going to stop and visit here, with their guitars and banjo. If it happens this will be a huge emotional jag, wonderful. I feel like I should set up a concert here in Mankato. Back then, one of our favorite songs is the following, with which we ended every evening of singing:

    Passengers will please refrain
    From flushing toilets while the train
    Is in the station. Darling, I love you!
    We encourage constipation
    While the train is in the station
    Moonlight always makes me think of you.

    If you wish to pass some water,
    kindly call the pullman porter,
    He’ll place a vessel in the vestibule.
    If the porter isn’t here,
    Try the platform in the rear-
    The one in front is likely to be full.

    If the ladies’ room be taken,
    Never feel the least forsaken,
    Never show a sign of sad defeat.
    Try the men’s room in the hall,
    And if some man has had the call,
    He’ll courteously relinquish you his seat.

    If these efforts are in vain,
    Then simply break a window pane-
    A novel method used by very few.
    My occupation after dark
    Is goosing statues in the park,
    If Sherman’s horse can take it, why can’t you?

    On Sundays we would drive to a Burger King in the Sherman Park area of S. Chicago in Hap’s big old bomber. We would eat our whoppers in the park and sing that song.

    Sorry for the nostalgia, but Dale did ask.

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    1. That’s funny! I’ve heard Brian Bowers, Dale and Jim Ed did an interview with him. I haven’t heard that song. I’m not sure that Dale and Jim Ed would have been able to play it, but I guess they could have done that.

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  24. My mom used to sing these lyrics:
    I get the neck of the chicken
    I get the rumble seat ride
    I get the leaky umbrella
    Everyone shoves me aside…

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      1. how can I (a non-musical type) describe a tune? she sounded rather mournful when she sang it.
        I looked for it on youtube, but the ones I found weren’t quite right. Also, after the part I quoted above, the lyrics on the internet are different than what she sang. Her version continued like this – at least sort of – “I guess I’ll go through life catching colds and…” rats, I’ve forgotten the rest.

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  25. A song about the underground railroad – Freedom Ride, sung by Taj Mahal on the album Largo. I’ve never known anyone who had that album unless I was the one who gave it to them – and I gave copies to many friends – but it’s a wonderful undiscovered treasure.

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  26. Edith, that reminds me of this one that Garrison used at the beginning of his morning show, circa 1979. Played it at 6 a.m. – I only know this because I was working a produce shift at the Wedge Co-op at the time that started at… you guessed it.

    I’ve got the left hind leg of a rabbit
    Things are coming my way
    All I gotta do is just reach out and grab it
    Things are coming my way
    Oh me, how good I feel
    I come possession of an automobile
    Now I can eat chicken and I don’t have to steal
    Because things are coming my way.

    This info was also with the lyrics. “Things Are Going My Way is from Bessie Jones, I believe. The Fiction Brothers (Alan Senauke & Howie Tarnower) had a really good recording of it on their
    Flying Fish album from about 25 years ago…”

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