All Go Hungry Hash House

Recordings

Dave Macon, 1925
Rural Delivery Number One, The New Lost City Ramblers, 1964
Southern Dance Music, Vol. 1, Charlie Poole, 196?
Down In The Willow, The New Deal String Band, 1970
Down Yonder: Old Time String Band Music from Georgia, Gordon Tanner, 1982
At Home In 1950, Uncle Dave Macon, 1987
Legend Of Charlie Poole, Charlie Poole And The North Carolina Ramblers, 19??
Cofer Brothers, 19??
Byrd Moore, 19??
Binkley Brothers, 19??
Dad Pickard, 19??
Hoke Rice, (title used Dirty Hangout Where I Stayed), 19??
Fun In Life, Uncle Dave Macon, 19??
The String Bands, Vol. 1, Various Artists (Charlie Poole), 19??
Ernest Stoneman And The Blue Ridge Corn Shuckers, 19??
A Corn Licker Still In Georgia, Gil Tanner And His Skillet Lickers, 19??
Fresh from the Market, Mitch & Eileen Rice, 2003
Keep My Skillet Good & Greasy, Uncle Dave Macon, 2004
Charlie Poole with the North Carolina Ramblers and the Highlanders, Charlie Poole, 2005
You Ain't Talkin' to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music, Charlie Poole / Various Artists, 2005

Notes

Performed by the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers in San Carlos on June 11th 1962.

This song sometimes occurs as Hungry Hash House (Blues), Lonesome Hungry Hash House and Hungry Hash House. A longer version is collected in Ozark Folksongs, by Vance Randolph, with the title The Boardinghouse.

Introduced by the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers as first recorded by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers. The lyrics used by the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers are as follows;

I'm a boarder and I dwell in that second class hotel,
If I stay there long I think I'll be insane,
I lay here on my trunk and I cannot get my bunk,
And (?) (beer?) has been raised up again.

Oh they feed on chicken pie, if you eat it you will die,
The meat you cannot cut it with a sword,
Oh the undertakers hang around for there's work to be found,
In that all go hungry hash house where I board.

Oh they carried me upstairs one night, I'd have needed a gun and knife,
A thing they had never done before,
Oh the fleas held me down while the (?) grubbed around,
In that all go hungry hash house where I board.

Of the beef steak it was rare and the butter had red hair,
And the (baby?) had it's feet both in the soup,
Oh the eggs they would not touch, if you kicked them they would hatch,
In that all go hungry hash house where I board.

Of the beef steak it was rare and the butter had red hair,
And the (baby?) had it's feet all in the soup,
Oh the eggs they would not touch, if you kicked them they would hatch,
In that all go hungry hash house where I board.

There have been many similar songs, often with specific targets of ridicule. The following example, first 3 verses only, is a miner's song describing living conditions at the Apex Copper Mine near St. George, Utah;

If you'll give your attention and listen to my rhyme
I'll sing about the boarding house up at the Apex Mine
Where they make us Zion biscuits just as hard as any slug
You would of died had you tried old Curly's awful grub

The coffee had the dropsy, the tea it has the gripe
The butter was consumptive and the slapjacks they had fits
The beef was strong as jubilant, it walked upon the floor
The spuds got on their dignity and rolled right out the door

The pudding had the jimjams, the pies was in disguise
The beans came to the table with five hundred thousand flies
The hash was simply murdered, just as hard as dobe mud
We howl, we wail, our muscles fail on Baxter's awful grub.