Long Journey Home (Two Dollar Bill)

 Photo credit: Paula Hunt


   One of the highlights of the Worley Gardner Music Festival was Ray Hicks leading the Percival Pickers in Long Journey Home (Two Dollar Bill).  It's a great song, and Ray is a great singer, and the Pickers are a great jamp group.  To me the best part of it was that Ray and the Pickers got the entire auditorium to sing along with this one.  That was a thrill, to have so many people involved with the song. 

     As described elsewhere in this blog, the Pickers are a group of Old Time music enthusiasts headquartered in Percival Hall at West Virginia University who have been playing every week for the past 35 years or so.  In fact, you can join them each and every Tuesday night around 730 or so.   Likewise, the Worley Gardner Winter Music Festival is held in Morgantown every year in February.  Y'all come now. 

     This song is a variant of the Carter Family's Worried Man Blues, and tells the story of a Depression era fellow who managed to lose all of his money except for a two dollar bill.  Two dollars was worth something in those days; nevertheless we should understand that this was an economic disaster.  But somehow the song remains upbeat, and maybe that's how we relate to the song.  One of the functions of music is to keep people moving forward even in the face of great misfortune, including deaths, romantic disappointments and financial reversals like this one.  People have a need to sing about their lives, both the good and the bad.  

 Video Credit:  Kathryn Madison.

The Stanley Brothers recorded an early version of this song. Also on youtube is a version by Bill Monroe and Doc Watson.  I really think that it works a little better the way Ray does it however.  Namely by slowing it down a tad, it allows the rhythm to give the song a little punch. 

Bill Monroe and Doc Watson. 

  

[G]Lost all my money but a two dollar bill
Two dollar bill boys, [C] two dollar [G] bill
Lost all my money but a two dollar bill
I'm [D] on my  long journey [G] home
 

Cloudy in the West and it looks like rain
Looks like rain, boys, looks like rain
Cloudy in the West and it looks like rain
I'm on my long journey home

It's dark and a raining and I want to go home
Want to go home, boys, want to go home
Its dark and a raining and I want to go home
I'm on my long journey home

Homesick and lonesome and I'm feeling kind of blue
Feeling kind of blue, boys, feeling kind of blue
Homesick and lonesome and I'm feeling kind of blue
I'm on my long journey home

There's black smoke a rising and it surely is a train
Surely is a train boys, surely is a train
There's black smoke a rising and it surely is a train
I'm on my long journey home