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Adam Tracksler
Nov-16-2005, 5:27pm
Risking sounding completely dim-witted, are there two versions of John Henry? I know the one that talks about John henry being a little boy and sitting on his pappys knee. I have also heard another verson that is faster and has less words -

are they two different songs?

plunkett5
Nov-21-2005, 10:21am
There are probably a hundred versions. He doesn't make it our alive in any I've heard so far. There are long digressions about his wife in some, his childhood in others. Like most old balleds, it's a pretty malliable song.
The Francis Child Ballad Books have been recently reprinted and they show some of the scope of the versions of ballads. Some have more than 200 in his volumes. Very cool stuff.