A Filksong for Writers

Writer’s Lullaby (tune: Utah Phillip’s Hobo’s Lullaby) By Mark Roth-Whitworth

Go to sleep you weary writer
  Let the words softly slip away
You’re in your nice warm bed now
  Tomorrow, o’r the keys your fingers will play.

I know that the words, they give you trouble.
  They trouble everyone when they won’t come.
Just you get your sleep now,
  They will come with the rising of the sun.

Today, your dreams they are in tatters,
  And you want to beat yourself,
In the morning, keep on typing,
  Someday there’ll be a Hugo on your shelf.

(c) 2022, mark roth

4 thoughts on “A Filksong for Writers

  1. Nice filk. However, while I was a long-time fan (and friend) of the late, great Bruce “U. Utah” Phillips, “the Golden Voice of the Great Southwest and America’s Most-Feared Folksinger,” while he did write hundreds of songs, including “If I Could Be The Rain” (most associated with his friend and performing friend Rosalie Sorrels (it was the title tune for one of her early albums), “Starlight On The Rails,” and “Aces, Straights And Flushes,” ditto the (Dr Demento-popularized, IIRC) joke bit, “Moose Turd Pie” (on his album “Good Though”), Phillips was not, according to at least two web cites, the author of “Hobo’s Lullabye,” it was Goebel Reeves (see https://musicfromthedepression.com/hobos-lullaby/ and Wikipedia. Odds are most of us are most familiar with Pete Seeger’s recording of the song.

    There’s also some sfnal connection; IIRC, Phillips was a GoH at some con (a midwestern one?). This is where I would ask Morris Keesan, who sadly, like Phillips, is no longer with us except in spirit and memory.

  2. Fair ’nuff. Until I did the lookup I didn’t know who had written it (but) having been to lots of Utah’s concerts over the years, plus listening to his albums, and also having heard Pete Seeger, Arlo, Woodie (and no doubt others), it didn’t feel like one he’d written… and if I don’t think about it, I hear Pete singing it; if I do, I hear Arlo.

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