Digital Tradition Mirror

The Lehigh Valley

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

The Lehigh Valley

Don't look at me that way, stranger,
I didn't shit in your seat.
I just come down from the mountains
With my balls all covered with sleet.

I've been up in the Lehigh Valley,
Me and my old pal, Lou,
A-pimpin' for a whorehouse
And a God damned good one too.

It was there that I first fucked Nellie;
She was the village belle.
I was only a lowdown panderer
But I loved that girl like hell.

But along came a city slicker,
All handsome, gay and rich,
And he stole away my Nellie,
That stinking son-of-a-bitch.

I'm just restin' my ass a moment,
And then I'm on my way.
I'll hunt the runt that swiped my cunt
If it takes till Judgement Day.

According to Ed Cray in _The Erotic Muse,_ the original of this
hobo song was a parlor song used in an 1882 play.  The first printed
bawdy version dates to 1912 and was sung to the tune of  Red River
Valley  (wherever that is.)  A number of attempts have been made to
bowdlerize this essential human story but they didn't work.
     Even if the song does not concern itself with biological
functions, a sprinkling of currently prohibited words (especially
when they are involved in hard-to-edit rhymes) is enough to ban a
song. In `The Lehigh Valley,' for example, the triple rhyme of the
last line couldn't be edited in a fashion suitable for for
presentation to polite company.  Into locked files went this hobo
classic. AJS

AJS

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!