The song you are hearing is Arkansas Traveler *   Oh once upon a time in Arkansas An old man sat in his little cabin door, And fiddled at a tune that he liked to hear, A jolly old tune that he played by ear. It was raining hard but the fiddler didn't care He sawed away at the popular air, Though his roof tree leaked like a water fall That didn't seem to bother that man at all A traveler was riding by that day, And stopped to hear him a-practicing away The cabin was afloat and his feet were wet, But still the old man didn't seem to fret. So the stranger said: "Now the way it seems to me, You'd better mend your roof," said he. But the old man said, as he played away: "I couldn't mend it now, it's a rainy day." The traveler replied: "That's all quite true, But this, I think, is the thing for you to do; Get busy on a day that is fair and bright, Then pitch the old roof till it's good and tight." But the old man kept on a-playing at his reel, And tapped the ground with his leathery heel: "Get along," said he, "for you give me a pain; My cabin never leaks when it doesn't rain."     -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * The play "The Arkansas Traveler" was a favorite attraction in Salem, Ohio, in the 1850's. It tells of a traveler's experience with an Arkansas squatter whom he finds sitting in his cabin playing away at a tune which he has heard for the first time on a trip to New Orleans. The entire play revolves around this tune and the squatter's effort to remember the ending of it. (DT)                 Click here to get back to the Corral Jukebox       ©DiannesDesigns2005