#poor lazarus

“It is said that Laz’us (short for Lazarus) worked on the levee camps, in the days when ‘you worked from can to can’t’ (from when you can see in the mornin’ till you can’t see at night) and maybe they paid you and maybe they didn’t.’ Laz’us got tired of finding meat (worms) in his greens, so he decided to walk the table. You had to be really disgusted and really tough to walk the table in a levee camp, tromping right down the middle of the mess table and slapping your big muddy shoes right in everybody’s plates. Po’ Laz’us walked the table that day with a blue-steel revolver in each hand. He knew the white boss would give him a whipping for what he had done, so he decided to go all the way. He walked over to the commissary, introduced himself by poking his pistols in the pay-clerk’s window and then took off with the payroll.

“The ballad takes up the story at this point describing the death of this tough guy with obvious sympathy and in powerfully tragic lines. You cannot fail to know, when you hear a gang of men on the road shouting out this ballad-work-song in rhythm with their picks, that they had often wished to do what Po’ Laz’us had done, never mind the consequences. The song has no end, just as the troubles of the Negro working man have no end. Sometimes, however, when the singers have come to the lines about Laz’us’s death, they pause. The picks fall all together in concert for a few moments. Then they sing:

Captain, did you hear about all your men gonna leave you, Next pay-day, Lawd, Lawd, next pay-day.”

Dave Van Ronk - Poor Lazarus