Lord, they accused me of murder, murder, murder, I haven't harmed a man
Lord, they accused me of murder, I haven't harmed a man
Oh, they have accused me of murder and I haven't harmed a man.
Oh,they accused me of forgery and I can't write my name
Lord, they accused me of forgery and I can't write my name.
I went all around that whole corral, I couldn't find a mule with his shoulder well
Lord, I couldn't find a mule with his shoulder well
I worked Old Maude and I worked Old Belle
I couldn't find a mule, Maggie, with his shoulder well.
Lord, that morning bell.
Lord, she went up the country, yeah, but she's on my mind
Well, she went up the country but she's on my mind.
Oh, if she don't come on the big boat, she better not land
Lord, if she don't come on the big boat, big boat, I mean she better not land
Lord, if she don't come on the big boat, I mean, she better not land.
Lord, they accused me of murder, I haven't harmed a man
Oh, they have accused me of murder and I haven't harmed a man.
Oh,they accused me of forgery and I can't write my name
Lord, they accused me of forgery and I can't write my name.
I went all around that whole corral, I couldn't find a mule with his shoulder well
Lord, I couldn't find a mule with his shoulder well
I worked Old Maude and I worked Old Belle
I couldn't find a mule, Maggie, with his shoulder well.
Lord, that morning bell.
Lord, she went up the country, yeah, but she's on my mind
Well, she went up the country but she's on my mind.
Oh, if she don't come on the big boat, she better not land
Lord, if she don't come on the big boat, big boat, I mean she better not land
Lord, if she don't come on the big boat, I mean, she better not land.
Contributed by Pluck - 2025/1/28 - 18:35
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(Source: Michael Tuft, Blues Lyric Poetry: An Anthology, Garland, 1983, p. 4)
Don Kent* points out in his note to the Yazoo reissue that Alexander's 'Levee Camp Moan Blues' is only nominally a blues. Even though he is accompanied by Lonnie Johnson on guitar [and Kent suggests that only a guitarist with Johnson's skills could follow the free metre of the singing], the piece is essentially a field holler. See also Dave Evans 'Big Road Blues' p 27: 'They [field hollers, field blues, arwhoolies] are a sort of worksong sung in the fields and levee camps ... They tend to be loosely structured, highly embellished and rythmically free, often consisting of falsetto whooping or hollering with no words or a very minimal text. Some, of course, do have more complex texts. Vocally they are very much like the blues, and they were an important ingredient in the original creation of the blues, but without an accompaniment they have quite a different function from blues'.
Kent also reminds us in his note to Yazoo 2017 that Alexander was the only successful blues singer who was not self-accompanied and, second only to Blind Lemon, was the most influential in spreading the Texas repertoire.
MUDCAT CAFE' :
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Levee Camp Moan by Texas Alexander
Date: 09 Jul 04
*Don Kent (blues historian)
Donald Theodore Kent ( 1944 – 2015) was an American collector of blues and bluegrass recordings, a founder and owner of record labels and a much sought-after writer of liner notes not only on his own labels' issues but also on others'.
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