Tune Steamboat Bill*, by Frank Leighton and Bert Leighton; original lyrics by Ren Shields, 1910; new union lyrics by Joel Emmanuel Hägglund (Joe Hill) ca 1911, performed by Joe Glazer & Bill Friedland - From the album, Songs of the Wobblies, 1954
* * * * *
Lyrics:
You may ramble ‘round the country anywhere you will;
You’ll always run across that same old Scissor Bill;
He’s found up on the desert; he is on the hill;
He’s found in every mining camp and lumber mill;
He looks just like a human; he can eat and walk;
But you will find he isn’t when he starts to talk;
He’ll say, “This is my country,” with an honest face,
While all the cops, they chase him out of every place.
Scissor Bill, he is a little dippy!
Scissor Bill, he has a funny face!
Scissor Bill should drown in Mississippi!
He is the missing link that Darwin tried to trace.
And Scissor Bill, he couldn’t live without the booze;
He sits around all day and spits tobacco juice;
He takes a deck of cards and tries to beat the Chink;
Yes, Bill would be a smart guy, if he could only think;
And Scissor Bill, he says, “The country must be freed
From Niggers, Japs, and Ducthmen, and the goldurn Swede.”
He says that every cop would be a native son,
If it wasn’t for the Irishman (that son-of-a-gun!).
Scissor Bill, the “foreigners” is cussin’!
Scissor Bill, he says, “I hate a Coon!”
Scissor Bill is down on everybody:
The Hottentots, the Bushmen, and the Man on the Moon!
Don’t try to talk your union dope to Scissor Bill;
He says he never organized and never will;
He always will be satisfied until he’s dead
With coffee and a doughnut and a lousy old bed;
He says he’ll get rewarded a thousand fold,
When he gets up to Heaven on the streets of gold;
But I don’t care who knows it, and right here I’ll tell,
If he is goin’ to Heaven, I’ll go to Hell.
Scissor Bill, he wouldn’t join the union!
Scissor Bill, he says, “Not me, by heck!”
Scissor Bill gets his reward in Heaven!
Oh, sure, he’ll get it, but he’ll get it in the neck!
Note:
* The tune is very similar to The Ballad of Casey Jones but not attributed as such, though certainly Joe Hill must have known this, since he wrote both this song and Casey Jones the Union Scab.