John Henry
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-03-30

Day 12 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series  (folksongindex.com)

"The ballad and folktale of John Henry, the tireless railroad worker, is the stuff of American legend. The ultimate battle of man versus machine, John Henry represented the hearts of the working men who struggled to keep their jobs on the railroad as machines began moving in to do their work."

Many versions over the last 100+ years, including Carl Sandburg’s The American Songbag (although the lyrics presented here have been slightly modified.), use a term that is now probably the most offensive word in English.  Its degree of offensiveness has increased markedly in recent years, although it has been used in a derogatory manner since at least the Revolutionary War. It is so profoundly offensive that a euphemism has developed for those occasions when the word itself must be discussed, as in court or in a newspaper editorial: “the n-word.” (from dictionary.com)

Research indicates the earliest John Henry ballads originated in the oral tradition of hammer songs in the 1870s and evolved over time into the ballads with which we are familiar today. One of the earliest written copies of the ballad, prepared by a W. T. Blankenship and published about 1900 or slightly earlier, and is believed it represents portions of several earlier versions.