Poor Married Man, Copy 01
 


Citation

“Poor Married Man, Copy 01,” Appalachian State University Libraries Digital Collections, accessed March 28, 2024, https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/items/show/31793.


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Title

Poor Married Man, Copy 01

Description

This item is part of the I. G. Greer Folksong Collection which consists of more than 300 individual song titles and their variants as collected by Isaac Garfield Greer (1881-1967) from informants, primarily in Ashe, Wilkes and Watauga counties. The collection includes manuscripts, typescript transcriptions produced by Dr. Greer’s clerical staff, and handwritten musical notations. Songs range from traditional Child Ballads, traditional English and Scottish ballads as well as their American variants, to 19th century popular music to musical compositions of local origin.

Subject

Folk songs--United States
Husbands--Songs and music
Mothers-in-law--Songs and music
Marriage--Songs and music

Publisher

W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University

Contributor

Greer, I. G. (Isaac Garfield), 1881-1967

Format

PDF

Language

English

Type

Text

Transcription

THE POOR MARRIED MAN

You may talk of the joys of the sweet honey-moon,
I’ll agree they are nice while they last,
But in most every case they are over too soon,
And numbered with the things of the past,
The trials and the troubles are sure to begin,
Although you may do what you can,
You’ll wish you were out of the clatter and the din,
That follows the poor married man.

Chorus

With the racket and the muss, the trouble and the fuss,
His face all haggard and wan,
You can tell by his clothes whereever he goes,
That he is a poor married man.

He works all the day, and he tries to be gay,
Forgetting his worry and care,
He whistles it down as he goes through the town,
Though his heart is full of dispair,
His very last cent must be spent out for rent,
While at home there is Mollie and Dan,
Both crying for shoes, and it gives him the “blues”,
To think he’s a poor married man.

Cho.

When he goes to bed with his poor tired head,
He lies on the edge of the rail,
The colic and the croup makes him jump up and whoop,
Like a dog with a can to his tail,
He must walk, he must talk, he must sing, he must rock,
He must run for the water and the fan
He must bounce, he must leap, he must do without sleep,
If he is a poor married man.

Cho.

From his mother-in-law he gets nothing but jaw,
No matter how hard he may try,
To keep her in trim for she’ll light into him
And all of his wishes defy,
He’s a fool, he’s a brute and he never can suit,
Though he does just the best that he can,
He had better be dead for it then could be said,
He’s at rest now a poor married man.

Cho.

Scholarly Classification

Brown, Folk Lyric - 309

File name

113_PoorMarriedMan_copy_01_ocr

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Comments

Allowed tags: <p>, <a>, <em>, <strong>, <ul>, <ol>, <li>