End of an Old Song Transcript
- ♪ Got up this morning, ♪
♪ Put my shoes on wrong. ♪
♪ Short time your honey, ♪
♪ But a long time gone. ♪
♪ Got up this morning, ♪
♪ Couldn't hardly keep from crying. ♪
♪ Ain't no bread on the table, ♪
♪ Smelled no meat a frying. ♪
- [Dillard] Well, the reason why that I like this here old hymns and such as that is it brings back my remembrance to my childhood days and boyhood when I was a-growing up right on up until this day. Well, I recall that back instead of going on in through this other this fast way of living and days like they are now. I recall back instead of going forward. I just do like I do, like I been a-doing. I just do such work as, as taking up shrubbery and resetting and transplanting shrubbery and yard work and such as that. I worked most of my days right up around Asheville. There's the well-to-do people that lives in them houses around there. The way that I am and all, I don't worry about that for because they've got education and they can get good jobs which I can't, and they can get jobs that they can make money on and I can't. I never was a man that ever had so much crave for money in my life. I never did worry about just only just enough to live off of or maybe to eat or something or another when I was out or something or another. They's several around here in the same shape that I'm in, you know. There's a good many of 'em in the same shape that I am around here.
♪ It's a sailor being tired, ♪
♪ Well, he hung down his head. ♪
♪ It's a sailor being tired, ♪
♪ Well, he hung down his head. ♪
♪ Well, he asked a little maid ♪
♪ To show him the bed. ♪
♪ Well, she showed him the bed ♪
♪ Like a maid ought to do ♪
♪ And she showed him the bed ♪
♪ Like a maid ought to do. ♪
♪ Well, he said, "My little honey, ♪
♪ Won't you come to bed too." ♪
♪ It's what I done there ♪
♪ Well, I wouldn't tell here. ♪
♪ It's what I done there ♪
♪ Well, I wouldn't tell here. ♪
♪ But a wish 'at night ♪
♪ Coulda been a long year. ♪
♪ If it is a boy child, ♪
♪ Please name it after me. ♪
♪ Put a pistol in its pocket, ♪
♪ Lord, send it to the sea. ♪
♪ Put a pistol in its pocket, ♪
♪ Lord, dress it in blue. ♪
♪ Tell it to hug the women ♪
♪ Like I used to do. ♪
(Uptempo country music plays on the juke box-- Merle Haggard, "The Longer You Wait")
♪ We both know that you never loved me. ♪
♪ I lied to myself from the start. ♪
♪ We both know that someday you'll leave me, ♪
♪ And in knowing just tears me apart. ♪
♪ How long will you prolong my misery? ♪
♪ Wish I could leave on my own. . . ♪
My name is Dillard Chandler, and I was borned in Madison County in Number 10 Township in an old log building. My mail address would be Route Three and I ain't even got a box here nor nothing. But I'm always here and yonder until I don't never fool with any mail. And when I get mail, I can't never read nohow, and I just don't never, ain't never put up no box. I'm in always in the Asheville area or somewhere's another. Around, if I ain't there, I'm on my way to get there. I ain't gardened none for myself none, in a right smart bit, nothing more than to just help other people. Been about seven years since I farmed any. I've worked right smart in 'bacco and such as that for people around and. Gee. I ain't done no farming in a right smart bit. Well, the only living that anyone can make is a farming living. They's not much to that here. In these hills, the way that it is, and all the way the land lays and all, you can clean up this land here. Well, when you go ahead and farm it, the land is gone. It washes away, just in a year or two. The place where you clean up, you see. Well, it's gone on down the country to some other country. This is my home, here. I just took a notion to come back and stay around a while. I been studying about coming back in home. Staying.
This job business, I just about decided that I ain't a-gonna fool with it anymore. Well, I ain't been in love to say in love for 10 or 15 years. I just decided there weren't much to that. When I take a notion for a woman, I get 'er. I just go to town and I order some up. I generally go up there and fetch me one about once or twice a month, and take me a woman out and keep her maybe a night or two or something like that. When I get out and maybe take a drink or something or 'nother and get to worrying about something or get something on my mind I just take a notion to sing. They's a lot of them around here that does sing the old way.
♪ When my apron is hung low, ♪
♪ He followed me through frost and snow. ♪
♪ But now my apron's to my knee, ♪
♪ He'll pass me by and he won't come in. ♪
♪ It's some folks says there's a flower you can find ♪
♪ Will cure false love and ease your mind. ♪
♪ And outten these flowers I made my bed. ♪
♪ And outten these leaves a pillow for my head. ♪
♪ Yes, I gathered red and I gathered blue ♪
♪ Until I got my apron full. ♪
♪ But little did I think what love would do. ♪
Just wander all over the mountains, just up in here by myself. Nobody to love me, nobody to care for me. Aww. Yeah, it's sad to be by yourself nobody love you, nobody care for you.
♪ Down the road and up the creek, ♪
♪ Little jug a' liquor makes a poor man alone. ♪
Well I just sing like I always sung. It's just an old timey love song, is what everybody called it a way back.
♪ A soldier traveling from the North ♪
♪ As the moon shine bright and clearly. ♪
♪ The lady knew the gentleman's heart ♪
♪ Because she loved him dearly. ♪
♪ She took his horse by the bridle rein ♪
♪ And led him to the stable. ♪
♪ I've hay and oats for your horse, my love. ♪
♪ Go feed him, you are able. ♪
♪ She took him by the lily-white hand ♪
♪ And led him to the table. ♪
♪ Served cake and wine for you, my love. ♪
♪ Go eat and drink your welcome. ♪
♪ She pulled off her blue silk gown ♪
♪ And laid it on the table. ♪
♪ He pulled off his uniform too, ♪
♪ And he hopped in the bed with the lady. ♪
♪ "I heard some trumpets sound th'alarm. ♪
♪ I must go and meet it." ♪
♪ "O soldier dear, don't leave me here, ♪
♪ For I am ruined forever." ♪
♪ "When silver bells and conchs shall stand ♪
♪ 's when you and I shall marry." ♪
♪ "O, soldier dear, don't leave me here, ♪
♪ For I am ruined forever." ♪
"Well, Dillard's father was my uncle. And he were a great singer, he had a great voice. He could sing and you could hear him a mile-- I'd say a mile when the air was right and carrying the voice right that you could hear him a mile. Seems strange to think that a voice like that is silent now.
♪ "Oh, what is this, I cannot see ♪
♪ With icy hands take hold on me." ♪
♪ "Oh, I am Death--none can excel.♪
♪ I open the door of heaven and hell. ♪
♪ Yes, I come for to get your soul. ♪
♪ Leave your [body] ♪
♪ And leave it cold, ♪
♪ To drop the flesh from off of your frame. ♪
♪ The earth and worms both have their claim." ♪
♪ "Now Death, O Death, please give me time ♪
♪ To fix my heart and change my mind." ♪
♪ "Your heart is fixed, your doom is bound. ♪
♪ I have these shackles to drag you down. ♪
♪ "Too late, too late, to all farewell. ♪
♪ My heart is fixed. I'm summonsed to hell. ♪
♪ As long as God in heaven shall dwell ♪
♪ My soul, my soul shall scream in hell." ♪
♪ "Come in, come in, my own true love, ♪
♪ And stay all night with me. ♪
♪ I have a very fine bed. ♪
♪ I will give it up to thee, ♪
♪ Oh, give it up to thee." ♪
♪ "I can't come there, no, I ain't a-coming there ♪
♪ To perch right on your thumb, ♪
♪ I'm afraid you'd rob me of my tender little heart ♪
♪ Just like a Scotland Man, ♪
♪ Just like a Scotland Man." ♪
♪ So if I had my bow and arrow, ♪
♪ My arrow and my string, ♪
♪ I'd shoot you right through the tender little heart, ♪
♪ Just like a Scotland Man, ♪
♪ Just like a Scotland Man." ♪
♪ "If you had your bow and arrow. ♪
♪ Your arrow and your string, ♪
♪ I'd fly away to heaven so high. ♪
♪ I'd never be seen anymore, more ♪
♪ I'd never be seen anymore." ♪
(A house party with up-tempo string-band music and solo buck dancing and couple dancing and fiddler Byard Ray and his band) I don't stay here all the time, I just come in here sometimes and stay maybe a week or two, go on back out and go somewhere, go to work. And maybe go to somebody's. Boarders. Get me a room up there in town. I stay in town a right smart If I just rent me a room, you see, and I work right there, fool around. I'd as soon work at a thing same as I am at another.
♪ Down and wretched, Baby...♪
You're talking, Doll... "I feel like sometimes that I'm sort of like that song-- All my good times done past and gone. All my good times are over. All the good times have passed and gone."
♪ Tobacco is an Indian weed ♪
♪ Comes in tin or box or pack, ♪
♪ Or you can buy it by the sack, ♪
♪ Filtered, strained or mentholated, ♪
♪ Burley twisted or aeriated, ♪
♪ T-O-B-A-C-C-O will kill me dead someday. ♪
♪ Smoke tobacco, Indian weed, ♪
♪ As from your lungs the smoke proceeds, ♪
♪ People smoke from Maine to Greenville, ♪
♪ Hackensack to Bakersfield. ♪
♪ People smoke from Nome to Dorsett. ♪
♪ TV doctors do endorse it. ♪
♪ But beware the bear named Smokey. ♪
♪ Douse that butt for weed and stogie ♪
♪ T-O-B-A-C-C-O yeah, that's the stuff for me. ♪
♪ Tobacco is an Indian weed, ♪
♪ And from its chains you are not free. ♪
♪ The surgeon general says you're doomed, ♪
♪ Sitting in his smoke-filled room. ♪
♪ Those who smoke and think it's sporty ♪
♪ May drop dead before they're forty. ♪
♪ As I sit back and puff on mine,♪
♪ This wicked national pastime.♪
♪ T-O-B-A-C-C-O, yeah, that's the stuff for me. ♪
♪ Tobacco is an Indian weed, ♪
♪ And from the ground it do proceed. ♪
♪ Roll it, chew it, sniff it, smoke it, ♪
♪ In your corncob pipe you stoke it. ♪
♪ Comes in tin or box or pack, ♪
♪ or you can buy it by the sack. ♪
♪ Filtered, strained or mentholated, ♪
♪ Burley, twisted, or airated. ♪
♪ T-O-B-A-C-C-O, yeah, that's the stuff for me! ♪