Lyrics:
Work all week in the noon day sun
Fifteen cents when Saturday comes
Goin to a dance to have some fun
Why don’t you get away lazy John?
Lazy John, lazy John
Why don’t you get your day’s work all done
You’re in the shade and I’m in the sun
Why don’t you get away lazy John?
Every night when I come home
Peas in the pot and the old jawbone
Here today and tomorrow he’s gone
Why don’t you get away lazy John?
Lazy John, lazy John
Why don’t you get your day’s work all done
You’re in the shade and I’m in the sun
Why don’t you get away lazy John?
My gal lives at the end of the road
Her teeth are crooked and her legs are bowed
But we sure have a lot of fun
Why don’t you get away lazy John?
Lazy John, lazy John
Why don’t you get your day’s work all done
You’re in the shade and I’m in the sun
Why don’t you get away lazy John?
Goin to a dance on Saturday night
Ain’t coming home til the broad daylight
Then I’ll take my girl back home
Why don’t you get away lazy John?
Lazy John, lazy John
Why don’t you get your day’s work all done
You’re in the shade and I’m in the sun
Why don’t you get away lazy John?
Featured On:
Old Time American Music
• Recordings I Learned From Or Like •
About the Song:
Most Anglo-American folk songs can be boiled down to three categories: tunes (instrumental numbers), songs (vocal numbers), and tunes with words (songs, typically non-ballads, that also function as tunes). “Lazy John” falls into the “tunes with words” camp in good company with standards like “Old Joe Clark” and “Cotton Eyed Joe”. In this version, “Lazy John” is sourced from the playing of Monticello, KY fiddler Clyde Davenport (b. 1921) in 1990, who in turn adapted it from a 1947 recording by Johnnie Lee Wills & His Boys that he heard on the radio.
Despite similar names, “Lazy John” is not related to “Sleepy(-Eyed) John”, another reel with words. There is another song with the same title that is related to “Solider, Soldier (Will/Won’t You Marry Me)” (Roud 489).