“Lynchburg Town”
Description
Usually a comic song about a farmer's troubles with wife, horse, merchants, prices, machinery, and anything else that comes along. Chorus: "I'm going down to town, I'm going down to town, I'm going down to Lynchburg town, toting my tobaccer down."
Recordings
- Blue Ridge Highballers, "Going Down to Lynchburg Town" (Columbia 15096-D, 1926)
- The Highlanders [Lonnie Austin, Roy Harvey, Charlie Poole, Odell Smith, Lucy Terry], "Lynchburg Town" [instrmental] (Paramount 3171, 1929) [May also have been issued under Poole's name with the same record number]
- Al Hopkins & his Buckle Busters, "Lynchburg Town" (Brunswick, unissued, 1928)
References
- BrownIII 415, "Lynchburg Town" (3 texts plus 2 fragments, 2 excerpts, and mention of 2 more, all with the "Lynchburg Town" chorus, but "A" and "B" have verses from "Raccoon" and "Possum Up a Gum Stump and "D" and "E" are partly "If I Had a Scolding Wife" ("Lucy Long (I)"); only "C" seems to be truly "Lynchburg Town"); also 480, "Hard Times" (1 text, massively composite: Chorus from "Lynchburg Town" and verses from "Old Bee Makes the Honey Comb" and the "White Folks Go to College" version of "Hard to Be a Nigger")
- Warner 181, "Lynchburg Town" (2 texts, 1 tune)
- Sandburg, p. 145, "Goin' Down to Town" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 192, "Hawkie Is a Schemin' Bird" (1 text, with the "Hawkie" first stanza, a chorus from "Lynchburg Town," and verses such as "Went up on a mountain To give my horn a blow" and "Climbed up on a mountain... To sweeten Liza Jane")
- Lomax-FSNA 260, "Lynchburg Town" (1 text, 1 tune)
- DT, LYNCHBRG*
- Roud #3444
- BI, Wa181