Uploaded October 2020 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
Day 218 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
Sandburg writes: "Circus barkers made up as "hayseeds" sang and recited this piece in the 1880's. It was published in the early Seventies with the title "Hey Rube". Three boys in Pittsfield, Illinois, asked a barker to teach them the words. He refused. The boys took turns listening, wrote down the words, joined the three parts and thus had the whole song. One of the boys grew up, became a Peoria lawyer, then a Chicago lawyer, and now on cold winter nights when there is no circus to go to, he sings it for his own boy."
The Traditional Ballad Index adds, "Another piece which may owe more to Sandburg's imagination than to tradition. Even Sandburg says that it came, indirectly, from a carnival barker."
Day 218 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series
Sandburg writes: "Circus barkers made up as "hayseeds" sang and recited this piece in the 1880's. It was published in the early Seventies with the title "Hey Rube". Three boys in Pittsfield, Illinois, asked a barker to teach them the words. He refused. The boys took turns listening, wrote down the words, joined the three parts and thus had the whole song. One of the boys grew up, became a Peoria lawyer, then a Chicago lawyer, and now on cold winter nights when there is no circus to go to, he sings it for his own boy."
The Traditional Ballad Index adds, "Another piece which may owe more to Sandburg's imagination than to tradition. Even Sandburg says that it came, indirectly, from a carnival barker."
