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Jan. 24, 2023 - Get Off My Lawn - Gavin McInnes
04:59
S4E208 - LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE GIRLS
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I'm gonna play freight train and I'm gonna play it in the style of cotton picking style.
That's for two fingers.
Live from New York, it's Get Off My Lot with Kevin McKinnon.
It's a right time to stop, and I'm going to play this in cotton picking style.
Free train, free train.
Jesus in my grave, yeah.
I crave a stone at my head.
That means tell them all that I'm gone to sleep.
That's Elizabeth Cotton, also known as Libba Cotton.
Born 1893, died in 1987.
Underrated, fascinating old lady.
She was born.
Where was she born?
Look up where she was born.
Probably Louisiana, some such thing.
She always wanted a guitar, and her mama bought her one.
She was a house servant, a maid.
And her mama bought her one from Sears, Sears Roebuck, $13, equivalent of about $113 today.
Where's she from now?
Chapel Hill.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Which would later be incorporated into Carboro.
Okay.
So the thing about Libba is, she got this guitar.
It's a right-handed guitar.
She's left-handed.
She do everything with the left-hand.
So she flip it upside down.
She started playing it upside down.
Now, she practiced originally with a banjo.
The banjo, the top string is a kind of a crazy string.
You can't use it as no bass.
So she got to work around that.
So when she bring it to the guitar, she started doing this thing where she does, well, she would play the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with a thumb.
Her signature alternating bass style has become known as cotton picking.
And she just plucked away.
She reminds me of that Scottish motherfucker, Burt Janch.
You know who named her Elizabeth?
Whom did?
She did it.
First day of school.
What's your name, girl?
I don't know.
How about Elizabeth?
She'd made it.
Her mama never named her.
Mama called her little sis.
She was the youngest.
So she just said, how about Elizabeth?
Then one of the kids she worked for when she's old as hell, Libba, called her Libba.
Couldn't say Elizabeth.
So then she goes, I like that name.
I'm Libba now.
Known as Libba.
She started this music.
The type of music she played became known as Skiffle.
Real big in the 50s in England.
So over there, some motherfucker take it.
And Nancy Whiskey is her name.
She just stole the song.
Libba wrote that song from scratch.
You heard?
Yes, I did.
Oh, it's Libba.
Oh, howdy do.
Libba, now I'm understanding that freight train, you wrote that, you know, because you heard a freight train going by when you were a little girl.
Yes, sir, I did.
And now, now, now, Nancy Whiskey, she done take that song from you.
Oh, that's what they say.
That she go ahead and took my good old fruit pickings from the bottom of the tree limbs.
We got it here, number one, three.
Number one, three, Nancy Whiskey.
No, no, number one, three, you stupid old bitch.
I ain't such for numbers, you see.
Okay, well, learn to read at least.
Mr. Fancy Soup fucking bitch has a name.
What'd you say to me?
No, no, no.
Want me to get my Switch, girl?
No, please, no.
Oh, they done souped it up.
Freight train, freight train, going so fast.
Freight train, freight train, going so fast.
I don't know what train he's on.
Won't you tell me where he's gone?
I think it's funny how these British people, they think that talking simple is like an affectation and you're trying to be simplified.
But Libba, you were just speaking how you spoke.
Yeah, now that I watch this, I am getting kind of pissed off.
Don't worry.
Remember the Seekers?
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