“Somebody's Waiting for Me”

Description

The singer reports that, being unemployed and broke, he has taken a job as a sailor. All the while, in all the ports he visits and despite all the fine things he sees, he remembers that "There is somebody waiting for me At an old cabin down by the sea..."

Supplemental text

Somebody's Waiting for Me
  Partial text(s)

          *** A ***

From Anne Warner, Traditional American Folk Songs from the Anne &
Frank Warner Collection, #160, pp. 362-363. Apparently conflated
from the singing of C. K. "Tink" Tillett (1940) and Dick Tillett
(1972), both of North Carolina

Once on a time, it was a very long time,
A year or it was maybe three,
I was out of a job, and I didn't have a bob,
When an old tar said to me,
"Would you like to come and have some fun
While you're young and stout and strong?"
So the very next day we sailed away
To the dear old shanty song.

  Chorus
There is somebody waiting for me
At an old cabin down by the sea.
In the land where I wish I could be
There is somebody waiting for me.

(1 additional stanza)

Recordings

• Cousin Levi & his Carolina Bluebirds, "Somebody's Waiting" (Bluebird B-7522, 1938)
• Ernest V. Stoneman, Willie Stoneman, and The Sweet Brothers, "Somebody's Waiting for Me" (Gennett 6620 [as by the Sweet Brothers]/Supertone 9323 [as by the Caldwell Brothers], 1929/Champion 15586 [as by the Clark Brothers]; rec. 1928); Ernest Stoneman and Eddie Stoneman, "There's Somebody Waiting for Me" (Vocalion 02632, 1934)
• Charles K. "Tink" Tillett, "Somebody's Waiting for Me" [instrumental] (on USWarnerColl01)

References

1. Warner 160, "Somebody's Waiting for Me" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. ST Wa160 (Partial)
3. Roud #7504
4. BI, Wa160