Get all 9 Cornelius Eady releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Withstand EP, Withstand (single), THE STERLING BROWN PROJECT: CORNELIUS EADY & ROUGH MAGIC with Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Threnody, WHEN YOU GO TO SLEEP, DO YOU THINK YOU'LL WAKE UP IN AMERICA?, DECEMBER, CHEAP HOTEL EP, Seven Songs EP, and 1 more.
1. |
Slim in Atlanta
03:56
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Slim in Atlanta
Poem Sterling A. Brown. Music Cornelius Eady
Down in Atlanta,
De white folks got laws
For to keep all de niggers
From laughin' outdoors
Hope to Gawd I may die
If I ain't speakin' the truth
Make de niggers do deir laughin'
In a telefoam booth
Slim Greer hit de town
An' de rebs got him told,-
'Dontcha laugh on de street,
If you want to die old."
Den dey showed him de booth,
An' a hundred shines
In front of it, waitin'
In double lines.
Slim thought his sides
Would bust in two
Yelled, "Lookout, everybody,
I'm coming through!"
Pulled de other man out,
An' bust in de box,
An' laughed for four hours
By de Georgia clocks.
Den he peeked through de door,
An' what did he see?
THREE hundred niggers there
In misery. -
Some holdin' deir sides
Some holdin' deir jaws,
To keep from breakin'
De Georgia laws.
An' Slim gave a holler,
An' started again;
An' from three hundred throats
came a groan of pain.
An' everytime Slim
Saw what was outside,
Got to whoopin' again
Till he nearly died.
An' while de poor critters
Was waitin' deir chance,
Slim laughed till dey sent
Fo' de ambulance.
De state paid de railroad
To take him away;
Den, things was as usual
in Atlanta, GA.
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2. |
Arkansas Chant
02:45
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Arkansas Chant
Poem: Sterling A. Brown. Music Cornelius Eday
The devil is a rider
In slouch hat and boots
Gun by his side
Bull whip in his hand.
The devil is a rider;
The rider is a devil
Riding his buck stallion
Over the land.
The poor-white and nigger sinners
Are low-down in the valley.
The rider is a devil
And there’s hell to pay.
The devil is a rider,
God may be the owner,
But he’s rich and forgetful,
And far away.
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3. |
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4. |
Mose
03:50
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Mose
Poem Sterling A. Brown. Music Cornelius Eady
Mose is black and evil
And damns his luck
Driving Mister Schwartz’s
Big coal truck.
He’s got no gal,
He’s got no jack.
No fancy silk shirts
For his back.
But summer evenings
Hard Luck Mose
Goes in for all
The fun he knows.
On the corner kerb
With a sad quartette
His tenor peals
Like a clarinet
O hit it Moses
Sing att thing
But Mose’s mind
Goes wandering---
And to the stars
Over the town
Floats, from a good man
Way, way down ---
A soft song, filled
With a misery
Older than Mose
Will ever be.
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5. |
Maumee Ruth
02:42
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Maumee Ruth
Poem Sterling A. Brown. Music Cornelius Eady
Might as well bury her
And bury her deep
Might as well put her
Where she can sleep
Might as well lay her
Out in her shinny black
And for the love of God
Not wish her back
Maum Sal may miss her—
Maum Sal, she only ---
With no one now to scoff
Sal may be lonely….
Nobody else there is
Who will be caring
How rocky was the road
For her wayfaring
Nobody be heeding in
Cabin, or town
That she is lying here
In her best gown
Boy that she suckled---
How should he know,
Hiding in city holes
Sniffling the ‘snow’?
And how should the news
Pierce Harlem’s din,
To reach her baby gal,
Sodden with gin?
To cut her withered heart
They cannot come again,
Preach her the lies about
Jordan, and then
Might as well drop her
Deep in the ground
Might as well pray for her
That she sleep sound
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6. |
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7. |
He Was A Man
07:53
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He Was a Man
Poem Sterling A. Brown. Music Cornelius Eady
It wasn’t about no woman,
It wasn’t about no rape,
He wasn’t crazy, and he wasn’t drunk,
An’ it wasn’t no shooting scrape.
He was a man, and they laid him down.
He wasn’t no quarrelsome feller,
And he let other folks alone,
But he took a life, as a man will do,
In a fight to save his own,
He was a man, and they laid him down.
He worked on his little homeplace
Down on the Eastern Shore,
He had his family, and he had his friends,
And he didn’t expect much more,
He was a man, and they laid him down.
He wasn’t nobody’s great man,
He wasn’t nobody’s good,
Was a po’ boy tried to get from life
What happiness he could,
He was a man, and they laid him down
He didn’t abuse Tom Wickley,
Said nothing when the white man curst,
But when Tom grabbed his gun, he pulled his own,
And his bullet got there first,
He was a man, and they laid him down.
Didn’t catch him in no manhunt,
But they took him from a hospital bed,
Stretched on his back in the nigger ward,
With a bullet wound in his head,
He was a man, and they laid him down.
It didn’t come off at midnight
Nor yet at the break of day,
It was in the broad noon daylight,
When they put po’ Will away,
He was a man, and they laid him down.
Didn’t take him to no swampland,
Didn’t take him to no woods,
Didn’t hide themselves, didn’t have no masks,
Didn’t wear no Ku Klux hoods,
He was a man, and they laid him down.
They strung him up on Main Street,
On a tree in the Court House Square,
And people came from miles around
To enjoy a holiday there,
He was a man, and they laid him down.
They hung him and they shot him,
They piled packing cases around,
They burnt up Will’s black body,
‘Cause he shot a white man down.
“He was a man, and we’ll lay him down.”
It wasn’t no solemn business,
Was more like a barbecue,
The crackers yelled when the fire blazed,
And the women and the children too---
“He was a man, and he laid him down.”
The Coroner and the Sheriff
Said: “Death by Hands Unknown.”
The mob broke up by midnight,
“Another uppity Nigger gone---
He was a man, an’ we laid him down.”
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8. |
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9. |
Long Track Blues
04:35
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Long Track Blues
Poem Sterling A. Brown. Music Cornelius Eady
Went down to the yards
To see the signal lights come on;
Looked down the track
Where my lovin’ baby done gone.
Red light in my block,
Green light down the line;
Lawdy, let yo’ green light
Shine down on that babe o’ mine.
Heard a train callin’
Blowin’ long ways down the track;
Ain’t no train due here,
Baby, what can bring you back?
Brakeman tell me
Got a powerful ways to go;
He don’t know my feelin’s
Baby, when he talkin’ so.
Lanterns a-swingin’;
An’ a long freight leaves the yard;
Leaves me here, baby,
But my heart it rides de rod.
Sparks a flyin;
Wheels rumblin’ wid a might roar;
Then the red tail light
And the place gets dark once more.
Dog in the freight room
Howlin’ like he los’ his mind;
Might howl myself
If I was the howlin’ kind.
Norfolk and Western,
Baby, and the C. & O;
How come they treat
A hardluck feller so?
Red light in my block,
Green light down the line;
Lawdy, let yo’ green light
Shine down on that babe o’ mine.
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10. |
Southern Cop
03:50
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Southern Cop
Poem Sterling A. Brown. Music Cornelius Eady
Let us forgive Ty Kendricks.
The place was Darktown. He was young.
His nerves were jittery. The day was hot.
The Negro ran out of the alley.
And so he was shot.
Let us understand Ty Kendricks.
The Negro must have been dangerous,
Because he ran;
And here was a rookie with a chance
To prove himself a man.
Let us condone Ty Kendricks
If we cannot decorate.
When he was found what the Negro was running for,
It was too late;
And all we can say for the Negro is
It was unfortunate.
Let us pity Ty Kendricks,
He has been through enough,
Standing there, his big gun smoking,
Rabbit-scared, alone,
Having to hear the wenches wail,
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11. |
Frankie & Johnny
04:20
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Frankie and Johnny
Poem Sterling A. Brown. Music Cornelius Eady
Oh Frankie and Johnny were lovers
Oh Lordy how they did love!
Old Ballad
Frankie was a half-wit, Johnny was a nigger,
Frankie liked to pain poor creatures as a little ‘un,
Kept a crazy love of torment when she got bigger,
Johnny had to slave it and never had much fun.
Frankie liked to pull wings of living butterflies,
Frankie liked to cut long angleworms in half;
Frankie liked to whip curs and listen to their drawn out cries,
Frankie liked to shy stones at the brindle calf.
Frankie took her pappy’s lunch week-days to the sawmill,
Her pappy, red-faced cracker, with a cracker’s thirst,
Beat her skinny body and reviled the hateful imbecile,
She screamed at every blow he struck, but tittered when
he curst.
Frankie had to cut through Johnny’s field of sugar corn
Used to wave at Johnny, who didn’t ‘pay no min’ –
Had had to work like fifty from the day that he was born,
And wan’t no cracker hussy gonna put his work behind –
But everyday Frankie swung along the cornfield lane,
And one day Johnny helped her partly through the wood,
Once he had dropped his plow lines, he dropped them many
times again,
Though his mother didn’t know it, else she’d have whipped
him good.
Frankie and Johnny were lovers, oh Lordy how they did love!
But one day Frankie’s pappy by a big log laid him low,
To find out what his crazy Frankie had been speaking of;
He found that what his gal had muttered was exactly so.
Frankie, she was spindly limbed with corn silk on her crazy
head,
Johnny was a nigger, who never had much fun---
They swung up Johnny on a tree, and filled his swinging hide
with lead,
And Frankie yowled hilariously when the thing was done.
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12. |
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13. |
Old Lem
03:25
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Old Lem
Poem Sterling A. Brown. Music Cornelius Eady
I talked to old Lem
And old Lem said:
“They weigh the cotton
They store the corn
We only good enough
To work the rows;
They run the commissary
They keep the books
We gotta be grateful
For being cheated;
Whippersnapper clerks
Call us out of our name
We got to say mister
To spindling boys
They make our figgers
Turn somersets
We buck in the middle
Say “Thankyuh, sah”
They don’t come by ones
They don’t come by twos
But they come by tens.
“They got the judges
They got the lawyers
They got the jury-rolls
They got the law
They don’t come by ones
They got the sheriffs
They got the deputies
They don’t come by twos
They got the shotguns
They got the rope
We git the justice
In the end
And they come by tens.
“They fists stay closed
Their eyes look straight
Our hands stay open
Our eyes must fall
They don’t come by ones
They got the manhood
They got the courage
They don’t come by twos
We got to slink around
Hangtailed hounds
They burn us when we dogs
They burn us when we men
They come by tens …
“I had a buddy
Six foot of man
Muscled up perfect
Game to the heart
They don’t come by ones
Outworked and outfought
Any man or two men
They don’t come by twos
He spoke out of turn
At the commissary
They gave him a day
To git out the county
He didn’t take it.
He said ‘Come and get me’
They came and got him
And they came by tens.
He stayed in the county ---
He lays there dead.
They don’t come by ones
They don’t come by twos
But they come by tens.”
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14. |
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Cornelius Eady New York, New York
Cornelius Eady is the author of 8 books of poetry, lives in NYC and is the co-founder of Cave Canem. The band Rough Magic came out of the sessions for his CD/Chapbook BOOK OF HOOKS. (Kattywompus Press, Jan. 2013)
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