Текст песни: Mountain Whippoorwill + перевод

Up in the mountains, it’s lonesome all the time

(Sof' win' slewin' thu' the sweet-potato vine.)

Up in the mountains, it’s lonesome for a child

(Whippoorwills a-callin' when the sap runs wild.)

Up in the mountains, mountains in the fog

Everythin’s as lazy as an old houn' dog

Born in the mountains, never raised a pet

Don’t want nuthin' an' never got it yet

Born in the mountains, lonesome-born

Raised runnin' ragged thu' the cockleburrs and corn

Never knew my pappy, mebbe never should

Think he was a fiddle made of mountain laurel-wood

Never had a mammy to teach me pretty-please

Think she was a whippoorwill, a-skittin' thu' the trees

Never had a brother ner a whole pair of pants

But when I start to fiddle, why, yuh got to start to dance

Listen to my fiddle -- Kingdom Come -- Kingdom Come

Hear the frogs a-chunkin' «Jug o' rum, Jug o' rum»

Hear that mountain whippoorwill be lonesome in the air

An' I’ll tell yuh how I travelled to the Essex County Fair

Essex County has a mighty pretty fair

All the smarty fiddlers from the South come there

Elbows flyin' as they rosin up the bow

For the First Prize Contest in the Georgia Fiddlers' Show

Old Dan Wheeling, with his whiskers in his ears

King-pin fiddler for nearly twenty years

Big Tom Sergeant, with his blue wall-eye

An' Little Jimmy Weezer that can make a fiddle cry

All sittin' roun', spittin' high an' struttin' proud

(Listen, little whippoorwill, yuh better bug yore eyes!)

Tun-a-tun-a-tunin' while the jedges told the crowd

Them that got the mostest claps’d win the bestest prize

Everybody waitin' for the first tweedle-dee

When in comes a-stumblin' -- hill-billy me

Bowed right pretty to the jedges an' the rest

Took a silver dollar from a hole inside my vest

Plunked it on the table an' said, «There's my callin' card

An' anyone that licks me -- well, he’s got to fiddle hard»

Old Dan Wheeling, he was laughin' fit to holler

Little Jimmy Weezer said, «There's one dead dollar»

Big Tom Sergeant had a yaller-toothy grin

But I tucked my little whippoorwill spang underneath my chin

An' petted it an' tuned it till the jedges said, «Begin!»

Big Tom Sargent was the first in line

He could fiddle all the bugs off a sweet-potato vine

He could fiddle down a possum from a mile-high tree

He could fiddle up a whale from the bottom of the sea

Yuh could hear hands spankin' till they spanked each other raw

When he finished variations on «Turkey in the Straw.»

Little Jimmy Weezer was the next to play

He could fiddle all night, he could fiddle all day

He could fiddle chills, he could fiddle fever

He could make a fiddle rustle like a lowland river

He could make a fiddle croon like a lovin' woman

An' they clapped like thunder when he’d finished strummin'

Then came the ruck of the bob-tailed fiddlers

The let’s-go-easies, the fair-to-middlers

They got their claps an' they lost their bicker

An' they all settled back for some more corn-licker

An' the crowd was tired of their no-count squealing

When out in the center steps Old Dan Wheeling

He fiddled high and he fiddled low

(Listen, little whippoorwill, yuh got to spread yore wings!

He fiddled and fiddled with a cherrywood bow

(Old Dan Wheeling’s got bee-honey in his strings)

He fiddled a wind by the lonesome moon

He fiddled a most almighty tune

He started fiddling like a ghost

He ended fiddling like a host

He fiddled north an' he fiddled south

He fiddled the heart right out of yore mouth

He fiddled here an' he fiddled there

He fiddled salvation everywhere

When he was finished, the crowd cut loose

(Whippoorwill, they’s rain on yore breast.)

An' I sat there wonderin' «What's the use?»

(Whippoorwill, fly home to yore nest.)

But I stood up pert an' I took my bow

An' my fiddle went to my shoulder, so

An' -- they wasn’t no crowd to get me fazed --

But I was alone where I was raised

Up in the mountains, so still it makes yuh skeered

Where God lies sleepin' in his big white beard

An' I heard the sound of the squirrel in the pine

An' I heard the earth a-breathin' thu' the long night-time

They’ve fiddled the rose, and they’ve fiddled the thorn

But they haven’t fiddled the mountain-corn

They’ve fiddled sinful an' fiddled moral

But they haven’t fiddled the breshwood-laurel

They’ve fiddled loud, and they’ve fiddled still

But they haven’t fiddled the whippoorwill

I started off with a dump-diddle-dump

(Oh, hell’s broke loose in Georgia)

Skunk-cabbage growin' by the bee-gum stump

(Whippoorwill, yo’re singin' now)

My mother was a whippoorwill pert

My father, he was lazy

But I’m hell broke loose in a new store shirt

To fiddle all Georgia crazy

Swing yore partners -- up an' down the middle!

Sashay now -- oh, listen to that fiddle!

Flapjacks flippin' on a red-hot griddle

An' hell’s broke loose

Hell’s broke loose

Fire on the mountains -- snakes in the grass

Satan’s here a-bilin' -- oh, Lordy, let him pass

Go down Moses, set my people free;

Pop goes the weasel thu' the old Red Sea

Jonah sittin' on a hickory-bough

Up jumps a whale -- an' where’s yore prophet now?

Rabbit in the pea-patch, possum in the pot

Try an' stop my fiddle, now my fiddle’s gettin' hot

Whippoorwill, singin' thu' the mountain hush

Whippoorwill, shoutin' from the burnin' bush

Whippoorwill, cryin' in the stable-door

Sing tonight as yuh never sang before

Hell’s broke loose like a stompin' mountain-shoat

Sing till yuh bust the gold in yore throat

Hell’s broke loose for forty miles aroun'

Bound to stop yore music if yuh don['t sing it down

Sing on the mountains, little whippoorwill

Sing to the valleys, an' slap 'em with a hill

For I’m struttin' high as an eagle’s quill

An' hell’s broke loose

Hell’s broke loose

Hell’s broke loose in Georgia

They wasn’t a sound when I stopped bowin'

(Whippoorwill, yuh can sing no more.)

But, somewhere or other, the dawn was growin'

(Oh, mountain whippoorwill)

An' I thought, «I've fiddled all night an' lost

Yo’re a good hill-billy, but yuh’ve been bossed»

So I went to congratulate old man Dan

-- But he put his fiddle into my han' --

An' then the noise of the crowd began