Bob Walkers

He was a friend of mine!?

I’ve done a little internet research to try to find the origins of the song “He Was a Friend of Mine” with little success. I’ve been asked to play this for a likely event, but I’d like to know where it came from. Does anyone know? Wiki has a few ideas that it goes back at least 50 years. It has been recorded by Bob Dylan, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Willie Nelson amongst others; and I have seen that it features in the film Brokeback Mountain
perhaps recorded by someone else. But from whence did it emerge? Thank You.

He Was a Friend of Mine is a traditional folk song in which the singer laments the death of a friend.

It has been recorded by Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Dave Van Ronk, Bobby Bare, Mercury Rev, The Mitchell Trio, Willie Nelson, Nanci Griffith and Cat Power. The version recorded by Willie Nelson was used in the film Brokeback Mountain and is credited to Dylan, who arranged an early version of the tune in 1962.[1]

Bobby Bare recorded the song in 1964 in memory of air crash victim Jim Reeves.

In the Byrds’ version, John F. Kennedy was the friend whose death was lamented. The melody is changed considerably and Roger McGuinn takes a songwriter’s credit.

“He Was A Friend of Mine” is an old folk standard with new lyrics written by McGuinn on the night of JFK’s assassination

The earliest known version of this song is under the title “Shorty George” (Roud 10055)[2] (This would be the old folk song that got changed)

Here’s what I found on Shorty George:

Shorty George

Well-a, Shorty George, he ain’t no friend of mine,
Well-a, Shorty George, he ain’t no friend of mine,
He’s taken all the women and left the men behind.

Well, my papa died when I was just a lad
My papa died when I was just a lad,
And ever since that day, I been to the bad.

Got a letter from my baby, couldn’t read from crying, (2x)
She said my mama weren’t dead yet but she was slowly dying.

Well,I took my mama to the burying ground, (2x)
I never knowed I loved her till the coffin sound.

Yes, I went down to the graveyard, peeped in my mama’s face, (2x)
Ain’t it hard to see you in this lonesome place ?”

Note: Shorty George was the train that brought visitors to
-and from- the state penitentiary.

It’s an old prison song. I’ve tried to research an exact date for you but like most old folk songs they don’t seem to have an author or an actual date. I would guess that it came around not too long after the trains did, but I don’t know off the top fo my head when that was and I dont’ have the time to look. I’m sorry that I didn’t elaborate earlier but after I sent it I tried to edit it and it kept giving me errors.

Does this help any?

Bob Walker’s Don Prudhomme Shelby Supersnake – DelValLO Spookfest Atco Rental 2010

Songs 4 Worship: Be Glorified { Various Artists } $2.99 Christian Cd…

You Don’t Have To Be Jewish / When You’re In Love The Whole World Is Jewish (1966 Studio Cast) $11.98 This CD is a re-release of two LP albums that originally came out around the same time as Allan Sherman’s “My Son, the Folksinger” back in the mid-1960s. This is REAL Jewish humor — not the nasty anti-semitic jokes that poke fun at Jews, but the types of in-jokes where we Jews laugh at ourselves and the world around us. The casting is superb, the dialect authentic, and the timing is just right. …

Circus Maximus $8.44 All products are BRAND NEW and factory sealed. Fast shipping and 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed….

Ewok Adventure [VHS] $14.98 …

Teen Witch [VHS] $9.99 …

Seven (Widescreen Edition) [VHS] $2.98 The most viscerally frightening and disturbing homicidal-maniac picture since The Silence of the Lambs, Seven is based on an idea that’s both gruesome and ingenious. A serial killer forces each of his victims to die by acting out one of the seven deadly sins. The murder scene is then artfully arranged into a grotesque tableau, a graphic illustration of each mortal vice. From the jittery opening cr…

The Incredibles $1.99 …

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan $2.99 …

Shooter $2.99 …

Drive Medical 790 Steerable Knee Walker $269.00 The Drive Medical Trekker Gait Handgrips can be mounted anywhere eon the handlebar and they are height adjustable and rotate….