Church St. Blues

[doublestop]

Can anyone help me out with the lyrics to Church St. Blues or at least point me in the right direction. Can't seem to find anything on the internet.

[Jacob]

Church Street Blues

[drelb]

Lyrics seem cool, can anyone give me tablature or standard notation for it.

[MartinD_GibsonA]

Two lines in the second verse are wrong. #The corrections are as follows:


Found myself a paper, friend and read yesterday's news
...
Folded up my old billfold and threw it far away.


Don Smith

[sunburst]

Two lines in the second verse are wrong. The corrections are as follows:


Found myself a paper, friend and read yesterday's news
...
Folded up my old billfold and threw it far away.


Don Smith

At the bottom of that link it says:
Author: Norman Blake
Version: Norman Blake

Are you saying he was misquoted? I was assuming that I had heard the song sung differently than it was written.

[Fuzzyway]

Just listened to Norman Blake sing on his Whiskey Before Breakfast CD...and he sings it this way:

Found myself a pickers-friend, read yesterday's news
...
Folded up my old billfold and threw it far away.

Best, Fuzzy

[MartinD_GibsonA]

Sunburst -- Basically, yes ... I'm saying that the individual who posted those lyrics simply heard them incorrectly.

Fuzzyway -- I also have the "Whiskey Before Breakfast" album and CD, and I hear it as "Found myself a paper, friend." #With all due respect, "Found myself a pickers-friend, read yesterday's news" just doesn't make sense. #"Found myself a paper, friend; read yesterday's news. #Folded up page 21 and stuck it in my shoes" does. If he found a paper, it was likely a day old, so the context is understandable.


Don Smith

[doanepoole]

While "paper" makes a whole lot more sense, it sure does sound an awful lot like he's saying "picker" on the WBB album.

Great song...I've always found the chord accents on the chorus difficult to deal with.

[Fuzzyway]

I just listened to Tony Rice do this song on his "Church Street Blues CD (1989 Sugar Hill Records). #My ear hears "picker-friend".

I had always assumed "pickers-friend" referred to a local publication in Nashville i.e, trade paper.

Play it however you hear it...a great song. #By the way I live on Church St...just not in Nashville.

Best, Fuzzy Purcell

[MartinD_GibsonA]

Fuzzyway -- I've also got Tony Rice's recording of the song, and he does in fact say "picker". #He also says it incorrectly.

OK, here we go, from Mel Bay's "The Norman Blake Anthology" as transcribed by Steve Kaufman ...

Transcriber's Note, p 3:
I laid out the notation and tablature for the vocal sections with the lyrics under the words, sung as they were on the recordings ... What is so great about this book is that for the first time we can stop guessing about some of Norman's lyrics that were so hard to understand from the recordings ... here for the first time we have them as the author intended.

Lyrics to "Church Street Blues", p 40:
Found myself a paper, friends,
and I read yesterday's news.
Folded up page twenty-one
an' stuck it in my shoes.
Gave me a nickel to the poor
my good turn for today,
Folded up my old billfold
an' threw it far away.

In tennis parlance ... game - set - match! # # ;-))


Don Smith

[Fuzzyway]

Just found my copy of Acoustic Guitar October 1999 which did a feature on Norman and a transcription with lyrics of this song. You are correct Don, the lyrics in that article do show "found myself a paper friends". Guess Tony R. must have misheard it as wellwhen Norman played it and continued the 2nd version.

Great song, thanks for the correction.

Best, Fuzzy Purcell

[David M.]

If memory serves me correctly, that anthology also has "..hangin' out UPTOWN...", not "out of town". And, Norman wanted "..I's..", not "I was..." to be more true to his accent.

That bluegrass lyric site has lots of misinterpretations.

Great song as is Slow Train Through Georgia off the same record.

[MartinD_GibsonA]

David,

Absolutely true. #There are also many instances in which the final "g" is dropped from a word in favor of an apostrophe. #For example, in "Church Street Blues", the opening line would be "I been hangin' out uptown". #Steve made a point of mentioning that he and Norman re-wrote the lyrics many times to get them exactly like the good Mr Blake wanted them.

Don Smith