The Little Stream of Whiskey (The Dyin' Hobo)

Just a mile west of the water tank on a cold November day
In a cold and lonesome boxcar a dyin' hobo lay
His pal sat there before him with a low and drooping head
Listenin' to the last words his dyin' buddy said.

Goodbye old pardner hobo I hate to say goodbye
But I hear my train a-comin' and I know she's a-getting nigh
Gonna tell that old conductor just where I want to stop
Where the little stream of whiskey comes flowing down the rocks.

We rode the rods together, we've rambled all around
In ev'ry kind of weather, we slept out on the ground
Oh, pardner don't you miss that train that always makes the stop
Where the little stream of whiskey comes flowing down the rocks.

Would you tell my girl in Danville that she need not to worry at all
I'm a-goin' to that country where I won't have to work a-tall
No I will not have to work there nor even change my socks
And the little stream of whiskey comes flowing down the rocks.

I'm a-goin' to that better place where ever'thing is right
Where the handouts grow on bushes and they sleep out ever' night
Won't have to wash my overhalls nor even change my socks
And the little stream of whiskey comes flowing down the rocks.

note: Liner notes state that the song is a hobo parody of "Bingen On
The Rhine." A mid-nineteenty century ballad by Carolyn Lady Maxwell
which was set to music in England and finally passed into oral tradition
in the U.S.

Source: DOC WATSON AND SON, VANGUARD VSD-79170
Recorded by Doc Watson
GG
oct97