Wednesday, April 12, 1933

Practiced play. Today in Assembly a woman named Jane Hayes talked about another school. Daddy applied for a job but didn't get it.

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"Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" is an American folk song that responds with humorous
sarcasm to unhelpful moralizing about the circumstance of being a hobo. The song's
authorship is uncertain, but according to hobo poetry researcher Bud L. McKillips the
words were written by an IWW member. Some verses, though, may have been written by a
Kansas City hobo known only as "One-Finger Ellis," who scribbled it on the wall of his prison
cell in 1897. There is also a questionable theory that Harry McClintock could have written it when
he was only fifteen. With unemployment standing at 24.9 percent on April 12, 1933, the song, which
is sung to the tune of "Revive Us Again," was quite popular. Below is the version published in 1908:

Why don't you work like other folks do?

How the hell can I work when there's no work to do?

Refrain

Hallelujah, I'm a bum,

Hallelujah, bum again,

Hallelujah, give us a handout

To revive us again.

Oh, why don't you save all the money you earn?

If I didn't eat, I'd have money to burn.

Whenever I get all the money I earn,

The boss will be broke, and to work he must turn.

Oh, I like my boss, he's a good friend of mine,

That's why I am starving out on the bread line.

When springtime it comes, oh, won't we have fun;

We'll throw off our jobs, and go on the bum.