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All Go Hungry Hash House
Composer: Traditional

Played by the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers (Jerry Garcia, Marshall Leicester and Dick Arnold) in San Carlos on June 11th 1962. They introduce the song by saying that it was first recorded by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers.

On recordings the song sometimes occurs as Hungry Hash House, Hungry Hash House (Blues), Lonesome Hungry Hash House, Old Go Hungry Hash House, Hobo's Paradise and Dirty Hangout Where I Stayed. A longer version is collected in Ozark Folksongs, by Vance Randolph, with the title The Boardinghouse.



Recordings

no info Single (All Go Hungry Hash House / From Jerusalem To jericho), Uncle Dave Macon & Sid Harkreader, 1925
no info Single (Hungry Hash House / The Highwayman), Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers, 1926
no info Single (Hungry Hash House / There'll Come A Time), Pete Harrison's Bayou Boys (Charlie Poole), 1926
no info Single (Old Go Hungry Hash House / He's Gonna Have A Hot Time Bye And Bye), Ernest Stoneman, 1926
no info Single (All Go Hungry Hash House / West Virginia Highway), Ernest Stoneman, 1926
no info Single (The All Go Hungry Hash House / The Georgia Hobo), Cofer Brthers, 1927
no info Single (All Go Hungry Hash House / It'll Never Happen Againy), Binkley Brothers' Dixie Clodhoppers, 1928
no info Single (All Go Hungry Hash House / Sally Goodin), Ernest Stoneman & The Dixie Mountaineers, 1928
no info Single (Harvey Logan / Hobo's Paradise), Byrd Moore, 1928
no info Single (The Sherriff & The Robber / That Old Go Hungry Hash House Where We Board), Arkansas Charlie, 1929
no info Single (Hungry Hash House Blues / She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain, No. 2), Bill Cox, 1929
no info Single (Hungry Hash House Blues / When We Meet On The Beautiful Shore), Luke Baldwin (aka Bill Cox), 1929
no info Single (Hungry Hash House Blues / California Blues), Charley Blake (aka Bill Cox), 1929
no info Single (Dirty Hangout Where I Stayed, Pt 1 / Dirty Hangout Where I Stayed, Pt 2), Hoke Rice & His Guitar, 1929
info Rural Delivery Number One, The New Lost City Ramblers, 1964
no info Old Time Southern Dance Music: The String Bands Vol 1, Various Artists (Charlie Poole), 1965
no info The Legend Of, Charlie Poole, 1968
no info His Songs And His Guitars, Malcolm Price, 1969
info Down In The Willow, The New Deal String Band, 1970
no info Fun In Life, Uncle Dave Macon, 1975
no info Ernest Stoneman And The Blue Ridge Corn Shuckers, 1975?
no info Where the Fraser River Flows, Phil Thomas, 1980
info Down Yonder: Old Time String Band Music from Georgia, Gordon Tanner/John Patterson/Smokey Joe Miller, 1982
no info Old-Time Southern Dance Music: The String Bands, Vols. 1 & 2, Various Artists (Charlie Poole), 1984
no info At Home In 1950, Uncle Dave Macon, 1987
no info Skillet Lickers Music: The Tanner Legacy 1955-1991, The Skillet Lickers, 1992
info Rhythm of the Mountains, Various Artists (Grandpa Jones), 1994
info Mountain Music Collection, Vol. 1: Wild and Reckless Men, Various Artists (Grandpa Jones), 1994
info Edison Recordings 1928, Ernest V. Stoneman, 1996
no info A Corn Licker Still In Georgia, Gil Tanner And His Skillet Lickers, 1997
no info Lafayette's Retreat, Hickory Wind, 1997
no info An American Original, Grandpa Jones, 1998
info Georgia Stringbands, Volume 1, Various Artists (Cofer Brothers), 1998
no info Nashville: 1928, Various Artists (Binkley Brothers' Clodhoppers), 1998
no info Legend Of Charlie Poole, Vol 3: Original Recordings 1926-1930, Charlie Poole, 1999
no info The Dickel Brothers, Volume One, The Dickel Brothers, 1999
info Family And Friends, Vol.1, Ernest Stoneman With Family And Friends, 199? (CD bonus track)
no info Fly Around, John Kirk & Trish Miller, 2000
no info Flower from the Fields of Alabama, Norman Blake, 2001
no info Uncle Dave at Home, Uncle Dave Macon, 2002
no info Down to the Woods, Martin Stephenson & Jim Hornsby, 2003
no info Fresh from the Market, Mitch & Eileen Rice, 2003
info Classic Sides 1924-1938, Uncle Dave Macon, 2004
info Keep My Skillet Good & Greasy, Uncle Dave Macon, 2004
info Charlie Poole with the North Carolina Ramblers and the Highlanders, Charlie Poole, 2005
info You Ain't Talkin' to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music, Charlie Poole / Various Artists, 2005
no info High 7 Moon 5, Martin Stephenson, 2007
no info Husband and Wife Were Angry One Night, Charlie Poole, 2009
no info The Essential, Charlie Poole, 2009
no info High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, Loudon Wainwright III, 2009
no info Through Oak and Ash, Pretty Little Feet, 2011
no info A Blessing to People, The Dixon Brothers, 2012

Lyrics

The lyrics of the version performed 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.

The third line of the first verse should be, "I lay here on my bunk and I cannot get my trunk" An early example of getting the words mixed up.

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.

 
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