Campfire Tape

Update for World of toil and trouble:

This is a song from Michelle Shocked’s first record, and believe me, if it was the original recording, you would notice:

Yes, it was recorded on a Sony Walkman in Texas but half the story has never been told. Among the most famous of field recordings, for the first time ever it will be heard at the proper speed, (which tells you a lot about why the Leadbellys never much loved the Lomaxes).

as Michelle Shocked tells us about the Tapes. But Banjochrystal’s krautrock accent video is worth it.

The Texas Campfire Tapes have been reissued including 23 (?!!?) bonus songs, and so was Arkansas Traveler including 7 bonus songs (what? Not more?), featuring the best country song ever: Blackberry Blossom.

Fan art tends to get better every year. See me shocked.

Singalong lyrics below. A-one, a-two:

Michelle Shocked: The Ballad Of Patch Eye And Meg,
from: The Texas Campfire Tapes, 1986.

Remembering back when I was a kid
I’d sneak down to the docks,
I’d watch the old men carving wood,
I’d watch the sailors tying knots,
But the thing I remember best
Was grey-haired old Patch Eye.
And the stories that he’d tell me about
His younger days as we watched the ships go by.

He’d talk about his missing eye,
He would talk about his wooden leg,
But he’d never talk about the old tatoo
On his right arm that said “Meg”.

He said he was captain of a pirate ship,
Sailing seas both blue and green.
And he said that all pirates got to have a patch,
So they can look real mean.
He’d make the bad guys walk the plank,
The pretty ladies he would save,
Then he’d take the treasures from the ship,
Then sink it to a watery grave.

He’d talk about his missing eye,
He’d talk about his wooden leg,
But he’d never talk about the old tattoo
Or brown-haired blue-eyed Meg.

He told many a story about his wooden leg,
As he sat there spinning yarns.
Once he’d lost it to a mamba snake
Down in the Amazon,
Another time it was way out west
In a gunfight, or so he said.
But that’s alright, a man’s got two legs,
Y’know, he could’ve lost his head.

He told me all about his missing eye,
He told me all about his wooden leg,
But he took the story to the grave
About the tattoo that said “Meg”.

He told me how he lost his eye,
And how he lost his leg,
But he never told me how he lost the love
Of brown-haired blue-eyed Meg.