dbt track # 91 - The Day John Henry Died

[Clams]

This is the last song left from The Dirty South, which is now the first album to be retired. This one always reminded me of Jason channeling a Bruce rocker. And the outro guitar part reminds me of The Clash.


I watched the rain; it settled in. We disappeared for days again.
Most of us were staying in, lazy like the sky.
The letters flew across the wire filtered through a million liars.
The whole world smelled like burning tires the day John Henry died.

We knew about that big machine that ran on human hope and steam.
Bets on John were far between and mostly on the side.
We heard he put up quite a fight. His hands and feet turned snowy white.
That hammer rang out through the night the day John Henry died.

When John Henry was a little bitty baby nobody ever taught him how to read
but he knew the perfect way to hold a hammer was the way the railroad baron held the deed.

It didn't matter if he won, if he lived, or if he'd run.
They changed the way his job was done. Labor costs were high.
That new machine was cheap as hell and only John would work as well,
so they left him laying where he fell the day John Henry died.

John Henry was a steel-driving bastard but John Henry was a bastard just the same.
An engine never thinks about his daddy and an engine never needs to write its name.

So pack your bags, we're headed west and L.A. ain't no place to rest.
You'll need some sleep to pass the test, so get some on the flight
and say your prayers John Henry Ford 'cause we don't need your work no more.
You should have known the final score the day John Henry died.

[bovine knievel]

first time i saw the Truckers, Jason sang this with a cig hanging from his lip

[RMD]

I always thought Bruce on this one also. The couple times I caught DBT with Jason it was always on my pre-show wishlist, never got it. Too bad.

[RMD]

double post

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Someone on the old board said this song reminded them of Life's Rich Pageant-era R.E.M. I still don't hear it.

[Gang Green]

I saw Jason do this the first time I saw him and the 400 Unit. First time I saw the Truckers in Charlston WV in 2009, someone from the audiance yelled for John Henry. Patterson just smiled back and said "sorry, we can't do that one".

[Iowan]

John Henry was a steel-driving bastard but John Henry was a bastard just the same.
An engine never thinks about his daddy and an engine never needs to write its name.

Some of my favorite lyrics in the band's entire catalog, and indeed all time.

[John A Arkansawyer]

I love this song, but the last verse has always kind of lost me, and now I see I've been mishearing it all these years as

and say your prayers John Henry for 'cause we don't need your work no more.

and thought it a nice-sounding way if slightly unnaturally rhymed way to phrase "say your prayers for John Henry". So now my question: Who the hell was John Henry Ford? Possibly this is the source for it:

Durin' war time I got 'scripted and they sent me to Detroit to work in John Henry Ford's shops. I was a moulder. I had to stay up there three long years, and Lawd! was I glad to get home.

"Jim McDowell,"
Tryon, North Carolina,
Adyleen G. Merrick, interviewer,
April 6-17, 1939.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940

If so, if it's just a way of saying "Henry Ford", then I don't get the last verse at all, even worse than when I started.

But you know something I'd never noticed before? Isbell says, "It didn't matter if he won," and he never does tell us if John Henry won or lost. I like that.

[Smarty Jones]

I used this song to make a video for John Henry the racehorse --- my friends I showed it to had no idea it was actually a song about the mechanization of blue collar labor.

[Cole Younger]

Love this song. It always makes me think about my grandpa. Part of the rason why is that Jason said he wrote the song after his grandpa died or at least I think I read that.

Also, my mama's dad was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He met my granmother when he was in the Marine Corps and on leave down in Florida where she was at the time.

Obviously they married and he never went back to Pennsylvania. He was a smart man but dropped out of school in the sixth grade as did all of his brothers. Nobody cared because they had the coal mines and mills in western Pennsylavania and all the men had jobs when he was young. His parents were first generation Americans and righfully thought they had done well just to make it here. There was plenty of work in the mills and mines. We all know how that story ended.

He never went back home to Pennsylvania and never saw his brothers, sister, or family again. He stayed in rural South GA where he raised my mama, aunt, and uncle.

You can imagine how hard work was to find for a yankee with a sixth grade education. They struggled a lot. He eventually found good paying work with the Merchant Marines. But that took him away from his family for long stretches.

I loved my grandpa but he was a hard man and seemed really frustrated all the time. As an adult, I understand why.

The way of life that he knew up in Pennsylvania died away for a lot of the reasons that Jason sings about in this song. I am a Southern boy so Sprignsteen's songs, though I like several of them, often don't resonate with me and I find him a bit too preachy at times.

But this song and image of my grandpa having all that he knew basically disappear makes me understand where people are coming from on that.

I am by no means a soft guy or a "modern man". If anything I'm a bit of a dinosaur in terms of mindset sometimes. But this song rarely fails to make me get teary eyed.

[mwh]

But you know something I'd never noticed before? Isbell says, "It didn't matter if he won," and he never does tell us if John Henry won or lost. I like that.

You said that you like that you don't know whether he won or lost, so if you really don't want to know then don't read below. But if you said that you like not knowing but secretly wish that you did know whether or not John Henry won or lost, then do read below:

There are many versions of John Henry's story. In almost all versions of the story, John Henry is a black man of exceptional physical gifts, a former slave,[1] possibly born in Tennessee.[3] Henry becomes the greatest "steel-driver" in the mid-nineteenth-century push to expand railroads from the east coast of the United States, across and through the mountains, to the frontier West. However, the owner of the railroad buys a steam-powered hammer to do the work of his mostly black steel-driving crew. To save his job and the jobs of his men, John Henry challenges the owner to a contest: Henry will race the steam-powered hammer. John Henry beats the machine, but exhausted, collapses and dies.

Taken from the "John Henry (folklore)" wikipedia page. As Michael Scott says about Wikipedia, "Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information."

[Smitty]

(The Storytellers and I were doin' a show down in Meridian, Mississippii
And these friends of mine came up
And brought me this real old book about John Henry
And they told me if they let me read this old book I'd probably write a song about it
And they did and I did and I called it More About John Henry)

First of all John Henry was a black man he was born where the sun don't ever shine
He was six feet tall he didn't know his own strength
But he did not swing the hammer all the time
Of course he didn't John Henry had some women on his mind
There was a woman cross the street named Poor Selma
Loved John Henry like a natural man
John Henry quit Poor Selma just like he was quittin' work
He loved that stinger-ree of Julie Anne
And what is it a stinger-ree is somethin' else you understand
There was a man named Stacker Lee in Argenta a little man with a big 44
You know he shot his woman down and took a shot at Poor Selma
But ol' Stacker won't be shootin' anymore
He had to quit it John Henry laid him dead on the floor
John Henry threw Stacker Lee in the river then he said I've got a say so to say
He broke out in a song that was wrote by Blind Leonard
He said Julie Anne I'm singing my say
He said I love you but I do not like your lowdown ways
Well John Henry went to a conjurin' woman said this misery ain't no way to live
Somebody's back door creeping on my pretty Julie Anne
Conjure woman had a say so to give
She said John Henry she said that's just the way things is
Well John Henry went to a hell bustin' man said I'm tormented deep in my soul
Well that hell buster prayed John Henry's sins away
And they tell me that the thunder did roll
Sweet Jesus what a frightenin' sight to behold
From that day on John Henry was a changed man all he did was just work all the time
Well he worked till the muscles in his body gave out
Then he kept right on a workin' in his mind
Don't do it cause a man ain't supposed to work all the time
Julie Anne said John Henry I love you Poor Selma said John Henry you're my man
Ruby said I'm gonna cook ye up some greens and some lean meat
With corn bread in a four foot pan
With lotsa cracklins but John Henry was a diff'rent kinda man
Well they allow that hard work killed John Henry hmm
I'm gonna leave that allowin' up to you hmm
Well was he killed by hard work or was he killed by bad women
Be sure that this ain't happenin' to you
Quit working when your day's work work is through
Cause a man ain't supposed to work all the time
And ain't that just the way the things is
A stinger-ree is somethin' else you understand
Quit working when your your day's work is through God bless you

[lotusamerica]

I love this song, but the last verse has always kind of lost me, and now I see I've been mishearing it all these years

If so, if it's just a way of saying "Henry Ford", then I don't get the last verse at all, even worse than when I started.

But you know something I'd never noticed before? Isbell says, "It didn't matter if he won,"

to me this is the entire brilliance of the song right here and why it's so much more than yet another tired song about John Henry. John Henry, the steel-driving bastard, wins the battle against the machine, but dies in doing it, showing that individual human effort is nice, but won't stop the tides, which are toward more automation, cheaper work, people be damned. Henry Ford was the king of automation, but in the end, American automation was just trumped by Japanese/Korean/etc. etc. cheaper automation, least expensive product. So say your prayers John Henry Ford, we don't need your work no more, and you should've known the final score the day John Henry died. An engine never thinks about his daddy and labor costs were high, Ford, Detroit and American industry were just the high water mark for a little while, now they've changed the way the job is done, that new machine is cheap as hell and business is heading west over the pacific, LA ain't no place to rest...it didn't matter if you won for a while.

[coornelius]

I've always really liked this tune, and wish it was still in Jason's full-band repertoire.

[John A Arkansawyer]

But you know something I'd never noticed before? Isbell says, "It didn't matter if he won," and he never does tell us if John Henry won or lost. I like that.

You said that you like that you don't know whether he won or lost

Not quite. I like that Isbell didn't tell us, that he left that detail out, that he said it didn't matter. I think that's real good writing.

I love this song, but the last verse has always kind of lost me, and now I see I've been mishearing it all these years

If so, if it's just a way of saying "Henry Ford", then I don't get the last verse at all, even worse than when I started.

But you know something I'd never noticed before? Isbell says, "It didn't matter if he won,"

to me this is the entire brilliance of the song right here and why it's so much more than yet another tired song about John Henry. John Henry, the steel-driving bastard, wins the battle against the machine, but dies in doing it, showing that individual human effort is nice, but won't stop the tides, which are toward more automation, cheaper work, people be damned. Henry Ford was the king of automation, but in the end, American automation was just trumped by Japanese/Korean/etc. etc. cheaper automation, least expensive product. So say your prayers John Henry Ford, we don't need your work no more, and you should've known the final score the day John Henry died. An engine never thinks about his daddy and labor costs were high, Ford, Detroit and American industry were just the high water mark for a little while, now they've changed the way the job is done, that new machine is cheap as hell and business is heading west over the pacific, LA ain't no place to rest...it didn't matter if you won for a while.

That makes a lot of sense. I'm going to think about it. My first reaction is that I don't like equating working men and women with the owners of the companies who exploit them. But there's an irony in it that does appeal to me anyway. Even if I don't like the politics of the song with this interpretation, I can still admire the art of it. I'm going to give this one some thought and, if I ever get a chance to talk with Jason, I think I'll ask him if the lyrics on the sheet are right.

Damn. You gave me a lot to think about. Thanks!

[Penny Lane]

always reminded me of Atlas Shrugged

[beergut]

Someone on the old board said this song reminded them of Life's Rich Pageant-era R.E.M. I still don't hear it.

Methinks it's the jangly guitars.

[lotusamerica]

That makes a lot of sense. I'm going to think about it. My first reaction is that I don't like equating working men and women with the owners of the companies who exploit them. But there's an irony in it that does appeal to me anyway. Even if I don't like the politics of the song with this interpretation, I can still admire the art of it. I'm going to give this one some thought and, if I ever get a chance to talk with Jason, I think I'll ask him if the lyrics on the sheet are right.

Damn. You gave me a lot to think about. Thanks!

Well, Henry Ford was a complex character, promoting high wages, affordable products and helping bring America the 40-hr work week (remember that?). So I don't know if the exploitative owner role fits him perfectly (although he was definitely not perfect in other ways). I'm not sure though if the song theme is one of comeuppence for the captains of industry or just a kind of wry recognition of how in the final score, the forward march of progress stops for no one. That is, if I'm even hearing it accurately at all (works for me though, so I don't really care if I'm wrong).