Sunday, August 9, 2015

Only a Hobo

Bum dies on the street.
He might not mean much to you,
But he's human too.

A social consciousness song from 1963. "Only a Hobo" doesn't specifically say that the guy died, but "His face was all grounded in the cold sidewalk floor" and "Only a hobo, but one more is gone" suggest to me that he did. This song appeared on the ninth volume of the bootleg series as a demo version for the Witmark music company. There's also a later version that he recorded around 1969 or 1970 that appears on volume 10 of the bootleg series, which collects recordings from that time.

As I was out walking on a corner one day
I spied an old hobo, in a doorway he lay
His face was all grounded in the cold sidewalk floor
And I guess he’d been there for the whole night or more

Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone

A blanket of newspaper covered his head
As the curb was his pillow, the street was his bed
One look at his face showed the hard road he’d come
And a fistful of coins showed the money he bummed

Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone

Does it take much of a man to see his whole life go down
To look up on the world from a hole in the ground
To wait for your future like a horse that’s gone lame
To lie in the gutter and die with no name?

Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone






1 comment:

  1. From the short version to the history of Bob Dylan's Music come inside his Music Box http://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/476/Only-a-Hobo and listen to every version of every song. Join us now.

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