FOLK COLLECTION 11: The Skaggs Foundation Cowboy Poetry Collection

Songs of the Workaday World

FC 11 B-54

160

Berton Braley

The Living Epitaph

When I pass out and my time is spent, I hope for no lofty monument,

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

13

Berton Braley

True Music

These boys have won to glory in battle everywhere, tremendous is their story and yet the bard's despair

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

15

Berton Braley

Some Community

There's a bunch of sores on my poor left arm which has swelled like a country hilly, for I'm filled chock full with a husky swarm of anti-disease bacilli.

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

16

Berton Braley

Altered

You wouldn't know your Percy now, there is a tan upon his snow-white brow, When he came he was a sissy and his ways were very prissy but he's undergone a change somehow

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

18

Berton Braley

S.O.S.

Yes, when we joined the army we were put in Olive Drab but now our service uniforms depend on what we do, sometimes a cobbler's apron is the grament that we grab

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

21

Berton Braley

The Bombproofer

Soft? Say, listen, you with the golden stripe shown' a piece of flyin' shrapnel hit you, me, I'm talkin', got a fewwords to pipe

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

23

Berton Braley

Battle of Paris

I comes in right straight from the trenches, an' pipin' what's round me to see, I meets an' American soldier who's dressed up for afternoon tea.

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

25

Berton Braley

The Late Arrival

(Who found it "fini" when he came) I feel just like a kid who's schemed an' planned for joinin' with the circus in some town, lured by the gilded wagons an' the band

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

27

Berton Braley

In Hospital

Nurse, here is another brave hero who wants to go back to the front, he's wounded in seventeen places from pullin' some kind of stunt

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

29

Berton Braley

The M.P.

Nobody loves the M.P. gosh, but we're misunderstood, though it's a fact we always act just for the soldier's own good.

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

31

Berton Braley

A.W.O.L.

A.W.O.L. -- yes, Bud, that's me! Six months up front; some long hard spell couldn't get no leave, so you can ses why I just went A.W.O.L.

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

33

Berton Braley

For Service

Snub-nosed and short as to wheelbase, spidery-like as to frame known as litte "tin Lizzie," doing its work just the same

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

35

Berton Braley

Limberfingers

He wasn't so good with a rifle, he couldn't throw hand grenades much and when in a fight, though his nerve was all right, he got in the other men's way

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

37

Berton Braley

Convoy

Black night folding and surrounding us camions and batteries of guns, no light save the shell-fire pounding us searching for the route the convoy runs

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

39

Berton Braley

Night at the Front

Night at the front an' the star shells soarin' lightin' up No Man's Land, mutter of men, an' the big boys roarin'

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

41

Berton Braley

His Detail

What I come in for when I joined this war was to go an' fight the wicked Hun, face the horrid Teut on the field, an' shoot regiments of Boches with my gun

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

43

Berton Braley

The Amateurs

A year ago the captain was instructor in a college, the sergeant was a plumber and the corporal a clerk, the privates had no glimmering of military knowledge

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

45

Berton Braley

Mud

No, it isn't the shells or the horrible smells (Though they give us quite trouble enough) and it isn't patrol that brings chills to the soul nor the danger and all of that stuff

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

48

Berton Braley

Aerial Adventurers

Out of the past they roust, spirit of times that knew tourney and reckless joust; they are the chosen few

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

49

Berton Braley

The Student Aviator

They gave me army tactics they filled me full of math. They taught me how to build a trench and march along a path.

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

51

Berton Braley

Futures (The Pilot)

When I get through with this man's war and out of this man's army, the kind of life I'm looking for is one that cannot harm me

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

54

Berton Braley

Archie (Anti-Aircraft Gun)

Archie sits on the ground below pointing his nose in the air, Archie's trying his best to throw shells that'll get me fair

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

56

Berton Braley

Tribute

Fritz? He is all you say, bandit and Hun, that guy; But, when he comes your way zooming up through the sky, riding a Fokker bus sitting up in the sun, he is a fighting cuss, he is a bird, the Hun!

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

58

Berton Braley

The Little Guy

You never can tell by a Frenchy's looks what kind of a fightin' man he is, the hero bird that you meet in books is a husky guy with a noble phiz

Buddy Ballads: Songs of the A.E.F. (1919)

FC 11 B-42

60

Berton Braley

The Army Doctor

He gives us pills for many ills, an' all the pills the same; no matter what a guy has got the matter with his frame.