{"id":1593,"date":"2016-07-10T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2016-07-10T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=1593"},"modified":"2024-03-14T11:19:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T15:19:16","slug":"georgie-and-the-irt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgie-and-the-irt\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgie and the IRT (Lawrence Block)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ATB_53Cf7iU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A bit of Newyorkiana from Dave Van Ronk&#8217;s second album and the nimble pen of his friend Lawrence Block. Now well known as a mystery\/thriller\/private eye writer, Block was then churning out naughty novels at a terrific pace under numerous pseudonyms, many of them set in the Greenwich Village Bohemian milieu he and Dave knew so well&#8230; for <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1876 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pads-are-for-Passion.jpg?resize=177%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"177\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pads-are-for-Passion.jpg?resize=177%2C300&amp;ssl=1 177w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pads-are-for-Passion.jpg?w=220&amp;ssl=1 220w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 177px) 100vw, 177px\" \/>example the slender volume at right, written as Sheldon Lord, with its tempting tagline: &#8220;Anita was a virgin &#8212; till the hipsters got hold of her!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Block first visited in the Village in 1956, and soon became a lifelong resident. He met Dave in Washington Square Park, where folk musicians congregated on Sunday afternoons, and, as he wrote in the introduction to <em>The Mayor of MacDougal Street<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p><em>This was&#8230; <\/em>before<em> the folk music renaissance, and before the curious <\/em><em>synthesis of drugs and politics made college kids a breed apart. <\/em><em>The great majority of collegians were still gray-flannel members of the Silent Generation, ready to sign on for a corporate job with a good pension plan. Those of us who didn\u2019t fit that mold, those of us who\u2019d always sort of figured there was something wrong with us, sat around the fountain in Washington Square singing \u201cMichael Row the Boat Ashore\u201d and feeling very proud of ourselves for being there.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>One of the ways folk\/bohemians amused themselves in those days was writing parodies of familiar songs &#8212; also a common pastime in the jazz world, where pretty much everyone knew dirty lyrics to pretty much every pop hit. Block and Van Ronk, along with Lee Hoffman and Roy Berkeley, wrote a bunch of anarchist\/Trostkyist parodies of folk songs making fun of the Communist folk crowd, called <em>The Bosses Songbook<\/em>, and Block also composed this urban train wreck ballad.<\/p>\n<p><em><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1595 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/lawrence-block-1980-ariel-dj.jpg?resize=171%2C212&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"lawrence block 1980 ariel dj\" width=\"171\" height=\"212\" \/><\/em>The model was &#8220;Engine 143,&#8221; which had\u00a0 been recorded by the Carter Family in 1927 and reissued on Harry Smith&#8217;s influential six-LP anthology, <em>American Folk Music<\/em>. You don&#8217;t have to know that to enjoy this song, but Block kept enough details from the original to make his lyric particularly amusing for the hardcore folk crowd, from the first line (&#8220;Along came the FFV, the swiftest on the line&#8221;) to the last (&#8220;And the very last words poor Georgie said was &#8216;Nearer My God, to Thee'&#8221;). The original song was a true story about a train wreck in 1890 and the death of the engineer, George Alley.<\/p>\n<p>I recently ran into Larry at a tribute concert for Dave&#8217;s 80th birthday, and he was kind enough to provide a bit more background:<\/p>\n<p><em>As a new New Yorker, I found the subway fascinating, and I&#8217;d heard &#8220;Engine 143,&#8221; which I believe David had called one of the few authentic pieces of scab folk music. I don&#8217;t know what suggested the parody to me, perhaps the thronged platform at the Times Square Station one evening&#8230;. I know I found decapitation amusing, though I&#8217;d be hard put to tell you why. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/lawrenceblock.com\/tofr-1-along-came-the-irt\/\">a blog post I ran<\/a> back in September, in which I say a little about the song and reference another song I heard David sing several times.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I learned this off Dave&#8217;s album, and one <span data-offset-key=\"a0meo-0-0\"><span data-text=\"true\">night on the street in Harvard Square, someone asked if I could sing a song about New York, and I sang them this. I don&#8217;t remember their reaction, but when I told Dave about it, he was horrified. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A bit of Newyorkiana from Dave Van Ronk&#8217;s second album and the nimble pen of his friend Lawrence Block. Now well known as a mystery\/thriller\/private eye writer, Block was then churning out naughty novels at a terrific pace under numerous pseudonyms, many of them set in the Greenwich Village Bohemian milieu he and Dave knew &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgie-and-the-irt\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Georgie and the IRT (Lawrence Block)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Georgie and the IRT (Lawrence Block) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgie-and-the-irt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Georgie and the IRT (Lawrence Block) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A bit of Newyorkiana from Dave Van Ronk&#8217;s second album and the nimble pen of his friend Lawrence Block. Now well known as a mystery\/thriller\/private eye writer, Block was then churning out naughty novels at a terrific pace under numerous pseudonyms, many of them set in the Greenwich Village Bohemian milieu he and Dave knew &hellip; Continue reading Georgie and the IRT (Lawrence Block) &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/georgie-and-the-irt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-07-10T11:00:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-14T15:19:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Pads-are-for-Passion-177x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgie-and-the-irt\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgie-and-the-irt\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Georgie and the IRT (Lawrence Block)\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-10T11:00:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-14T15:19:16+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgie-and-the-irt\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":582,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgie-and-the-irt\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/07\\\/Pads-are-for-Passion-177x300.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgie-and-the-irt\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/georgie-and-the-irt\\\/\",\"name\":\"Georgie and the IRT (Lawrence Block) - 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This was his first attempt to compose a multi-section rag, and his paean to the room that was his professional home for much of the 1960s: the Gaslight Cafe on MacDougal Street\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Gaslight cafe","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Gaslight-cafe-300x249.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1869,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/st-louis-tickle\/","url_meta":{"origin":1593,"position":1},"title":"St. Louis Tickle (Dave Van Ronk)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"July 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This was Dave Van Ronk's first venture into classic ragtime, and spawned an entire generation of ragtime guitar virtuosos. Dave Laibman, Eric Schoenberg, Ton Von Bergeyk, Leo Wijnkamp, Guy Van Duser... they all started out with \"St. Louis Tickle.\" Dave had been singing and playing the second section since the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"ragtime jug stompers - front cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/ragtime-jug-stompers-front-cover-293x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1468,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/riot-number-nine\/","url_meta":{"origin":1593,"position":2},"title":"Riot in Cell Block Number Nine (The Coasters)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Though my record-buying at Dayton\u2019s focused on prewar blues, there were a handful of notable exceptions \u2013 most significantly, a trio of reissue albums on the Atlantic label featuring the Drifters, the Clovers, and \u2013 far and away most memorably \u2013 the Coasters. 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Chandler had been a classical oboe player in Akron, Ohio, and Dave recalled Variety referring to him as \"musician turned folksinger.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"len chandler","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/len-chandler.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5986,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/hoochie-coochie-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":1593,"position":4},"title":"Hoochie Coochie Man (Willie Dixon\/Muddy Waters)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"November 2, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I have to start this post with a Dave Van Ronk story: As he told it, he was playing on a blues festival someplace and arrived late, not knowing who else was on the bill. He rushed onstage and did his show, ending with a romping, stomping, macho version of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Muddy-Waters-and-Willie-Dixon-e1761955651631.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1459,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/the-gambler\/","url_meta":{"origin":1593,"position":5},"title":"The Gambler (a country hit and a Dave Van Ronk story)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"That year of 1976-77 was a hard time in Dave Van Ronk's life. The sixties were over and he'd had some good times but hadn't caught the brass ring. He'd done a half-dozen albums for major labels -- two for Mercury, two for Verve, one for Polydor, one for Cadet\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Van-Ronk-cleaned.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1593"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5088,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1593\/revisions\/5088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}