A Dolly Aside #3
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 LISTEN NOW · 2:46 |
Click to play the hobo song that Billy Kemp and I wrote for my Dad.¹
Hobo Songs and Argyle Socks
When I was a kid, Dad often sang “Hobo’s Lullaby” to me. Woody Guthrie made the song a hit and ensured its enduring legacy in the folk music canon. Though it’s been sung by everyone from Emmylou Harris to Billy Bragg, “Hobo’s Lullaby” was actually written by “The Texas Drifter” Goebel Reeves. When Goebel was a teenager, his family lived in Austin while his dad was a member of the Texas state legislature. Geobel saw a homeless man on the street in Austin who made such an impression on him that he wrote “Hobo’s Lullaby.”
Dad always told me the story about how his elementary school friend started a fight with him because of “Hobo’s Lullaby.” Dad was playing the Woody Guthrie record when his friend was over at the house and this verse came along in the song:
“I know the police cause you trouble.
They cause trouble everywhere.
But when you die and go to Heaven,
you'll find no policemen there.”
The friend started hitting Dad because the friend’s dad was a policeman and, understandably, he didn’t like a song that said his dad wouldn’t go to Heaven.
Dad and I talked about this childhood incident a lot because two little boys in a fistfight over whether policemen go to Heaven sums up a lot about the kinds of conflicts you’re liable to encounter as you get older about religion, authority, poor folks, the law, and freedom to roam.
These talks were the essence of spending time with my dad. I got up early so that I could ride with him on the way to school in the mornings. I followed him around the house asking him big questions. I called him on the phone as much as his work schedule would allow and we talked about nothing and everything.
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Dad often wore argyle socks. This fascinated me when I was a kid. When you’re a kid who likes to sit in the floor, you spend a lot of time looking at the socks, shoes, and trouser legs of adults. This was how I always got tickled at Mawmaw Narcie’s best friend Elsie Brown who wore her knee high socks rolled down around her ankles like donuts. Mawmaw Margie wore flip flops and had a razor sharp crease in the front of her polyester trousers. Mom often wore tights and flat shoes with little bows at the front. Dad wore argyle socks and desert boots.
When we lived in Boston, Dad and his argyle socks went to Harvard Divinity school. When childcare fell through or wasn’t in the budget, I sat in the corner during his seminars and stared at a lot of people’s legs in corduroy and denim with desert boots and clogs and argyle socks and black tights. I played with Raggedy Ann and colored in the Tin Man and Dorothy with deep seriousness while Krister Stendahl argued that the apostle Paul was more radical than the Christian community imagined. I liked him for his big glasses and his long square face. He seemed to take it in his stride that there was a person who had only just learned the alphabet in his class.
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As a Divinity School student, Dad volunteered and ministered at Pine Street Inn, a homelessness charity. He took me down to the former Boston Fire Department Headquarters where Pine Street offered housing to men and women. I’ll never forget the line of people outside that building. There were the men of “Hobo’s Lullaby.”
That night they wouldn’t be sleeping in a boxcar, but in the firehouse.
My mom and dad grew up in the wilderness of the Appalachian mountains. They went to a small town high school. They’d seen poverty and, as young parents with two children in an expensive city, they stretched beans, pasta, and rice to the last bean. When we moved to a tall urban apartment complex with all of the neighbors’ cooking drifting up the stairs and men sleeping on Subway grates in Harvard Square, it was a shock. That wasn’t the poverty they’d seen in Appalachia. Dad and Mom had to find a way to explain to us about how a life can fall apart and how you can find yourself on a subway grate or lining up outside the Pine Street Inn.
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I started my path as a songwriter in Boston when Dad gave me a blue college-lined notebook like the ones I saw him and his fellow students carrying to class. He encouraged me to write stories in my notebook. I wrote about pickles in a jar left at the back of the fridge. Will and Dill Pickle were the some of the first signs of what’s become my lifelong tendency toward pathetic fallacy. Everything has feelings in my world.
When I grew up, I wrote a song about a hobo called “If I Ever Get Ten Dollars" which I dedicated to Dad. After he passed away, I also wrote a song about assorted socks called “It’s a Happening (For Socks)” for my children’s album The Wondarium.
Dad taught me to be a songwriter by sitting in the living room wearing argyle socks, singing “Hobo’s Lullaby” while playing his Yamaha folk guitar, and by showing me that hobos were real, each one a man or woman with a story of their own.
One day I had the idea of making a hobo doll for Dad. He always saved his odd socks for me so that I could make sock dolls from them. I found an argyle sock in the pile and that’s how Argyle came to life. I made a movie about him, his hats, his quilt, and his storybook which you can see below.
Dad and I are still having our talks. Thank you for sitting in on our talk today – for being here with Dad and me.
Your friend,
Jeni
Here’s the video I made about sweet Argyle:
P.S.
What’s next?
I’ve recently come across several recordings of my unreleased songs and I’ve made some sturdy doll and bear repairs which have brought me joy. So, I’ll write about a song and a doll or two in upcoming letters.
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If you’re interested in the Hobo quilt I made for Argyle and Dad, you can find a whole book of quilt patterns based on hobo signs in the book Hobo Quilts.
TOURING NEWS!
I have booked concerts in the USA in March & April 2026 (MD, VA, NC, and TN). I’ll be playing shows in the UK in February.
Would YOU like to have a Jeni concert? Please get in touch by commenting or replying to this letter.
I’m very excited to sing for folks again!
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This recording was made by a fan named Michael Mulvey at Merlefest in 2010. Billy and I opened for Tony Rice and Peter Rowan. This was one of the most significant moments in my musical life because going to Merlefest with Dad and hearing the group Polecat Creek inspired me to move from writing poetry to writing songs. Returning to Merlefest as a billed performer and receiving a standing ovation for our show with my parents in the audience beat everything. You can hear the studioand other live recordings of “If I Ever Get Ten Dollars” on bandcamp. You can see this performance here.
Other places you can find me on the web:
Tip Jar at Paypal or Ko-Fi. Thank you for supporting the new song, dolly rescue, bear rehabilitation, and loom re-stringing society!
Substack Notes where I post pictures and thoughts plus excerpts from other writers whose work I’m enjoying.
My shop where you can buy real albums that you can hold in your hand.
My website.
Instagram and Facebook where I post my adventures almost daily.
My articles for Modern Daily Knitting. My most recent article is about Storehouse, the new museum by the V&A.
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