The Hop-Joint - Folklorist

“The Hop-Joint”

Description

"I went to the hop-joint And thought I'd have some fun, In walked Bill Bailey With his forty-one! (Oh, baby darlin', why don't you come home?)" Bailey, or somebody, shoots the singer in the side: "Don't catch me playin' bull In the hop-joint any more!"

Supplemental text

Hop-Joint, The
  Partial text(s)

          *** A ***

From Dorothy Scarborough, On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs,
p. 90. Apparently collected by Mrs. Tom Bartlett of
Marlin, Texas.

I went to the hop-joint
And thought I'd have some fun,
In walked Bill Bailey
With his forty-one!
(Oh, baby darlin', why don't you come home?)

First time I saw him
I was standin' in the hop-joint door.
Next time I saw him,
I was lyin' on the hop-joint floor.
(Oh, baby darlin', why don't you come home?)

(2 additional stanzas, and probably more which the informant
would not repeat)

Notes

Scarborough's source apparently had a great deal of trouble acquiring a complete text of this song, and the resulting fragments are difficult to interpret.

It also is a peculiar composite; quite a few lines, and of course the main character, are reminiscent of "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home?" (though it's not clear whether that song, from 1902, was the inspiration of this or derived from it); the feel seems more like "Duncan and Brady," and of course there are lots of stories of violence in drug-houses. We really need more information than we have. - RBW

Cross references

cf. "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home?" (some lyrics; character of Bill Bailey)

References