Get Off My Lawn - Gavin McInnes - S4E208 - LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE GIRLS
Aired: 2023-01-24
Duration: 04:59


=== Freight Train Blues (04:53) ===

[00:00:05]  I'm gonna play freight train and I'm gonna play it in the style of cotton picking style.
[00:00:10]  That's for two fingers.
[00:00:13]  Live from New York, it's Get Off My Lot with Kevin McKinnon.
[00:00:20]  It's a right time to stop, and I'm going to play this in cotton picking style.
[00:00:25]  Free train, free train.
[00:00:49]  Jesus in my grave, yeah.
[00:01:15]  I crave a stone at my head.
[00:01:20]  That means tell them all that I'm gone to sleep.
[00:01:30]  That's Elizabeth Cotton, also known as Libba Cotton.
[00:01:34]  Born 1893, died in 1987.
[00:01:38]  Underrated, fascinating old lady.
[00:01:42]  She was born.
[00:01:43]  Where was she born?
[00:01:44]  Look up where she was born.
[00:01:45]  Probably Louisiana, some such thing.
[00:01:50]  She always wanted a guitar, and her mama bought her one.
[00:01:53]  She was a house servant, a maid.
[00:01:57]  And her mama bought her one from Sears, Sears Roebuck, $13, equivalent of about $113 today.
[00:02:02]  Where's she from now?
[00:02:04]  Chapel Hill.
[00:02:05]  Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
[00:02:06]  Which would later be incorporated into Carboro.
[00:02:10]  Okay.
[00:02:10]  So the thing about Libba is, she got this guitar.
[00:02:15]  It's a right-handed guitar.
[00:02:16]  She's left-handed.
[00:02:16]  She do everything with the left-hand.
[00:02:18]  So she flip it upside down.
[00:02:20]  She started playing it upside down.
[00:02:22]  Now, she practiced originally with a banjo.
[00:02:25]  The banjo, the top string is a kind of a crazy string.
[00:02:28]  You can't use it as no bass.
[00:02:30]  So she got to work around that.
[00:02:31]  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.
[00:02:46]  Her signature alternating bass style has become known as cotton picking.
[00:02:51]  And she just plucked away.
[00:02:52]  She reminds me of that Scottish motherfucker, Burt Janch.
[00:02:56]  You know who named her Elizabeth?
[00:02:59]  Whom did?
[00:03:00]  She did it.
[00:03:00]  First day of school.
[00:03:01]  What's your name, girl?
[00:03:03]  I don't know.
[00:03:03]  How about Elizabeth?
[00:03:05]  She'd made it.
[00:03:06]  Her mama never named her.
[00:03:07]  Mama called her little sis.
[00:03:08]  She was the youngest.
[00:03:09]  So she just said, how about Elizabeth?
[00:03:12]  Then one of the kids she worked for when she's old as hell, Libba, called her Libba.
[00:03:16]  Couldn't say Elizabeth.
[00:03:17]  So then she goes, I like that name.
[00:03:19]  I'm Libba now.
[00:03:20]  Known as Libba.
[00:03:24]  She started this music.
[00:03:25]  The type of music she played became known as Skiffle.
[00:03:28]  Real big in the 50s in England.
[00:03:32]  So over there, some motherfucker take it.
[00:03:34]  And Nancy Whiskey is her name.
[00:03:36]  She just stole the song.
[00:03:37]  Libba wrote that song from scratch.
[00:03:39]  You heard?
[00:03:40]  Yes, I did.
[00:03:41]  Oh, it's Libba.
[00:03:43]  Oh, howdy do.
[00:03:44]  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.
[00:03:51]  Yes, sir, I did.
[00:03:53]  And now, now, now, Nancy Whiskey, she done take that song from you.
[00:03:58]  Oh, that's what they say.
[00:04:00]  That she go ahead and took my good old fruit pickings from the bottom of the tree limbs.
[00:04:05]  We got it here, number one, three.
[00:04:07]  Number one, three, Nancy Whiskey.
[00:04:10]  No, no, number one, three, you stupid old bitch.
[00:04:13]  I ain't such for numbers, you see.
[00:04:15]  Okay, well, learn to read at least.
[00:04:17]  Mr. Fancy Soup fucking bitch has a name.
[00:04:19]  What'd you say to me?
[00:04:20]  No, no, no.
[00:04:22]  Want me to get my Switch, girl?
[00:04:23]  No, please, no.
[00:04:28]  Oh, they done souped it up.
[00:04:29]  Freight train, freight train, going so fast.
[00:04:33]  Freight train, freight train, going so fast.
[00:04:36]  I don't know what train he's on.
[00:04:40]  Won't you tell me where he's gone?
[00:04:43]  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.
[00:04:50]  But Libba, you were just speaking how you spoke.
[00:04:53]  Yeah, now that I watch this, I am getting kind of pissed off.
[00:04:56]  Don't worry.
[00:04:57]  Remember the Seekers?