Annotation:I Just Don't Want to Be Rich

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I JUST DON’T WANT TO BE RICH. AKA – "You Wonder Why I'm a Hobo." Canadian, Jig or Air. Canada, Prince Edward Island. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AA’BB. The tune was once a popular song that begins:

You ask me why I’m a hobo,
And why I sleep in a ditch;
Its not because I’m lazy, boys,
I just don’t want to be rich.

The song was recorded for the Library of Congress from the singing of Sam Hinton in 1947; Hinton said he had learned it from an uncle in the late 1920's. Folksinger Bruce ('U. Utah') Phillips revived the song in the late 20th century.

Source for notated version: Connie Gallant (b. 1920's, North-East Kings County, Prince Edward Island) [Perlman].

Printed sources: Perlman (The Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island), 1996; p. 129.

Recorded sources:

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