Well this job I got is just a little too hard
Running out of money, Lord, I need more pay
I’m gonna wake up in the morning, Lord
I’m gonna pack up my bags
I’m gonna beat it on down the line
Goin’ down the line (goin’ down the line)
Goin’ down the line (goin’ down the line)
Goin’ down the line (goin’ down the line)
Goin’ down the line (goin’ down the line)
Goin’ down the line (goin’ down the line)
Goin’ down the line (goin’ down the line)
Beat it on down the line
Yes and I’ll be waiting at the station, Lord, when that train pulls on by
I’m going back where I belong
Yes and I’m goin’ north to my same old used to be
Down in Joe Brown’s coal mine1
Coal mine (coal mine)
Coal mine (coal mine)
Coal mine (coal mine)
Coal mine (coal mine)
Coal mine (coal mine)
Coal mine (coal mine)
Down in Joe Brown’s coal mine
Yes I’m goin’ back to that shack way across the railroad track
That’s where I think I belong
Yes I got a sweet woman, Lord, she’s waiting there for me
That’s where I’m gonna make my happy home
Happy home (happy home)
Happy home (happy home)
Happy home (happy home)
Happy home (happy home)
Happy home (happy home)
Happy home (happy home)
That’s where I’m gonna make my happy home
Words and music by Jesse Fuller
Also mentioned in Joshua “Peg Leg” Howell’s (1888–1966) 1929 song “Rolling Mill Blues” (which is a version of “Corinne”) and in some versions of the traditional tune “In the Pines.”
Joseph Emerson Brown (1821–1894), elected four times as governor of Georgia, was president of the Dade Coal Company, which had extensive coalmine holdings in that state.
Studio recording: Grateful Dead (March 17, 1967).
First documented performance: March 12, 1966, at the Danish Center, Los Angeles. A steady number in the repertoire thereafter.
A feature of this tune in concert was the drum-beat introduction and the fact that the number of beats would vary from concert to concert. The particular meaning of the number of beats is not always obvious; it often matches the day of the month. The most beats on record is forty-two, in honor of Mickey Hart’s forty-second birthday, while some versions omit the intro beats entirely. (Jackson, Randy)
The original recording of this one appears on a 1961 album called The Lone Cat by the song’s author, Jesse Fuller. Fuller was a fixture on the Bay Area blues scene for many years, and the Dead were familiar with his records and local live performances.
Born into extreme poverty in Jonesboro, Georgia, in 1896, Fuller never really knew his natural parents. He was instead brought up by a couple who treated him “worse than a dog,” until he managed to get out of the house at age nine and work as a cow grazer outside of Atlanta. Throughout his teens, he worked for next to nothing in a lumber camp. He went west in the early twenties, taking odd jobs and singing along the way. After a stay of several years in Los Angeles (he ran a hot dog stand inside the United Artists film lot and even appeared as an extra in a few films), he moved to Oakland, where he lived until he died in 1976. During those decades, he worked variously as a laborer for the Southern Pacific Railroad (hence the train imagery that fills so many of his songs), a shipbuilder, and a farm laborer. He was “discovered” in the mid-fifties, playing in Bay Area clubs and bars, and recorded his first record in 1955. Never particularly well-known, Fuller was nonetheless a fine songwriter and interpreter whose songs vividly speak of a life of hard times and hard work while still exhibiting great spirit and even humor.
An interesting aspect of his talent (and Weir even alludes to this before the May 5, 1970, version of Fuller’s “The Monkey and the Engineer”) was that he made some of his own musical instruments, including a huge stand-up bass, called a fotdella, which he would play with his right foot in solo performances. (Jackson: Goin’ Down the Road) 94