I've Been Working On The Railroad: A Song History

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"I've Been Working On The Railroad" first appears in print as "Levee Song," in the 1894 eighth edition of Carmina Princetonia, the songbook of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton.[1] Citing Fuld's Book of World-Famous Music, the Traditional Ballad Index reports that the railroad words cannot be traced before 1894, a year that saw two printings of the song, each linked to Princeton.[2] It was already in circulation there: the Princeton Glee Club sang a "Southern Levee Song" in concerts in 1892.[3] On how much older it is, sources differ: a Princeton history suggests it may reach back to the 1830s or 1840s, with words first about Black laborers building Southern levees and later about railroad work, while the Ballad Index judges it a composed song whose date still needs fuller study.[1][2] Princeton's own historians connect it to blackface minstrel shows, a campus tradition that may have begun in 1886 and that traded in demeaning caricatures of Black people.[1]

Black-and-white photograph of workmen bending over railroad track as they lay rails and ties

Workmen laying track, photographic print, between ca. 1900 and 1927. The record does not say where it was taken; shown for its subject, with no connection to the song.

Fuld, as the Ballad Index reports, dates the closing "Dinah" verses to before 1850, and how they came to be joined to the railroad verses is unknown.[2] The Index also cites Opie and Opie's The Singing Game, which places a song about someone in the house with Dinah on the blackface minstrel stage of the 1840s and 1850s, though not to the melody now familiar.[2] One such minstrel song, "Old Joe, Or Somebody in de house wid Dinah?" was first published in Boston in 1844, according to the JUBA Project, citing Hans Nathan; the project documents minstrel troupes singing it in England and Scotland between 1846 and 1849.[4]

The melody gained a second life in Texas: University of Texas student John Lang Sinclair set new words to it, and "The Eyes of Texas" was first performed on May 12, 1903, in a student minstrel show in Austin.[5] The university says the singers most probably wore blackface, while noting that surviving accounts give no definitive answer.[5] The Shannon Quartet recorded the railroad song for Victor on April 6, 1923, and the disc, Victor 19059, came out that July.[6] Maureen Sellers includes it in My Teaching Book For Appalachian Dulcimer, Volume Two, a 56-page instruction book of basics, how-tos and tunes for Appalachian mountain dulcimer, published by Fingers Of Steel.[7]

Our books that contain the song "I've Been Working On The Railroad"

Sources

  1. Princeton & Slavery: "The Minstrel Tradition at Princeton University".
  2. The Traditional Ballad Index: "I've Been Working on the Railroad".
  3. Princeton University Archives: "Ask Mr. Mudd: Levee Song and Princeton's Minstrel Shows".
  4. The JUBA Project: "Old Joe".
  5. UT Eyes of Texas: "Origins, Meaning and Debut".
  6. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor 19059".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Maureen Sellers, My Teaching Book For Appalachian Dulcimer, Volume Two".
  8. Image: Workmen laying track, photographic print, between ca. 1900 and 1927. Frank and Frances Carpenter collection, Library of Congress.

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