page_title: Parchman Farm (song)
section_title: Lyrics and style
hierarchical_section_title: Parchman Farm (song) / Lyrics and style
caption_attribution_description: English: Parchman Penal Farm. Male prisoners hoeing in a field.
context_page_description: "Parchman Farm" or "Parchman Farm Blues" is a blues song first recorded by American Delta blues musician Bukka White in 1940. It is an autobiographical piece, in which White sings of his experience at the infamous Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman Farm.
  Jazz pianist-vocalist Mose Allison adapted it for his own "Parchman Farm" and "New Parchman", which are among his most popular songs. Numerous artists have recorded their own renditions, usually based on Allison's songs.
context_section_description: In March 1940, White arrived at the recording studio prepared to record with several songs.  When Melrose saw that they were mostly reworkings of current popular blues numbers, he encouraged White to take a couple of days and prepare some new material.  White later recalled, "I got down to it" and returned on March 7 with twelve new songs.  One was "Parchman Farm Blues", which he recorded that day (all twelve were recorded over two days, May 7 and 8, 1940).  The song has the elements of Delta blues, including a one-chord modal arrangement and a slide guitar break. However, the melody line is distinctive and relies less on blue notes.  White delivers the vocal in his characteristic grainy, guttural style accompanied by his acoustic guitar, with Washboard Sam on washboard percussion.  His lyrics allude to his time at Parchman:
  Oh listen you men, I don't mean no harm (2×)
  
  If you wanna do good, you better stay off ol' Parchman farm
  
  We got to work in the mornin', just at dawn of day (2×)
  
  Just at the settin' of the sun, that's when the work is done
  White never denied responsibility for the shooting, which he claimed was in self-defense: "I shot him where I wanted to shoot him.  Broke this thigh".  Although he usually downplayed his time at Parchman, the difference in his songs after his release is apparent.  According to music historian Ted Gioia, "the rollicking, carefree ethos of 'The Panama Limited', of 'Shake 'Em On Down', is replaced by a darker, more introspective mood in his later recordings.  A sense of pathos enters his music ... [and they] take on a more overtly artistic dimension".
  When he last recorded commercially in 1937, rural-style blues was giving way to urban, ensemble blues styles.  By 1940, performers, such as Louis Jordan with jump blues and T-Bone Walker with West Coast blues, were becoming popular and the electrified-Delta sound of Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker was still a few years away.  As Gioia notes, "It's not clear what audience Melrose had in mind when he agreed to record these songs".  When "Parchman Farm Blues" was released as a single by Okeh Records in 1940, it went largely unnoticed.  A brief review in the Amsterdam News in July 1940 referred to White's songs as "folk music" and not part of any current popular style.  Subsequently, he only performed sporadically until his rediscovery during the American folk music revival in the early 1960s, when Bob Dylan and others began recording his songs, such as "Fixin' to Die Blues".  "Parchman Farm Blues" is included on numerous Bukka White and various artists compilations.
caption: Parchman Farm chain gang in 1911
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