Wilmot MacDonald - Joe Brook Song

This song tells the somewhat humorous tale of a lumberjack going off to work at a camp on "stream they called Joe Brook".

This song is sung a cappella. In Manny's transcription she writes that in the third stanza Wilmot MacDonald sang "Now twas on a Sunday morning", but Wilmot actually sings "Monday morning". The singer noticeably taps his foot throughout the song and laughs nearly once per stanza. In stanzas five and seven the singer inserts an extra spoken line, both of which are jokes; "They got to be always a MacDonald" in stanza five and "I hope there s no scaler here" in stanza seven.

At the end of the song the singer yells hoo hoo to rhyme with the song s final sung word brew . In Ives version, also transcribed from Wilmot MacDonald (though on a separate occasion) MacDonald does not speak his joke lines at all (or at least they were not transcribed) and also omits a line in stanza two, which Manny transcribed as and when we reached that depot camp, the place they called Burnt Hill . Wilmot ends the song by yelling woo-hoo!

## Sources

This recording is transcribed in Louise Manny and James Reginald Wilson eds. Songs of Miramichi Brunswick Press Fredericton, N.B. pg. 120. The song also appears in Edward Ives ed. Folksongs of New Brunswick Goose Lane Editions Ltd., Fredericton pg. 78. 007-02

## Lyrics

Lyrics as transcribed from this recording in Songs of Miramichi

It was Friday in October,
Nineteen and twenty-four,
I left dear old Grey Rapids
With a half a dozen more,
I took the train for Deersdale,
A place I did not know,
For to work up in the lumber woods,
With Cough-a-lans did go.

It was early one Saturday morning,
The day broke with a chill,
We started o er that rocky road
To a place they call burnt Hill;
and when we reached that depot camp,
the place they call Burnt Hill,
The small birds in that counteree,
They whistle loud and shrill.

Now twas on a Sunday morning
And bitter was our lot,
We started out for Coughlan s camp,
That drear and lonely spot;
And soon we covered five miles or more,
When sad was our outlook,
Then we saw that ragged cabin,
On the stream they called Joe Brook,

We had men from every country,
From Frenchmen down to Swedes,
Yes, men if every counteree
And men of every breed;
The brush it lay upon the ground
Where every place you d look.
it would fill our heart with misery
round the stream they call Joe brook.

Oh we had a young time keeper,
McDonald was his name
(Spoken: They got to be always a McDonald)
A man of education,
And from Grey Rapids came,
Tryon Coughland was our foreman
,A man both tall and proud,
and just before the break of day
He would turn out his crowd.

Now Tom Sullivan was our leader,
He d lead us all in prayer,
He cast his eyes up to the skies,
and bitterly he d swear;
He d rake all the apostles
From Jacob down to John,
It would fill your heart with misery
To heart that man go on.

But we had not worked there every long
When the scalers they came in
(Spoken: I hope there s no scaler here)
They sure cut down our lumber,
For the always cut her thin,
Took thirty for a thousand,
That made the foreman look,
When I saw his broad chin quiver,
On the stream they call Joe Brook.

Now they are a man among the crowd,
His name I will not say,
Who always treated all the byes
That ever comes his way,
He always treated all the byes
Who everyone proved true,
He was the man to watch the can
While biling of home brew.
(Yelled: woo-hoo)