In the dark days of the Depression, hobos and tramps were increasingly common - songs such as "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" actually celebrated this sad phenomenon, and started a minor trend in songwriting. This song seems to have been recorded only this once, for
Velvet Tone on November 25 of 1929, by Ernest Hare under one of his many pseudonyms (thanks to "BlueBeat.com" for providing that information). It is not known who is playing guitar on this
side. The record was played on some unforgiving equipment once or twice, so the louder notes are badly damaged - especially in the first 20 seconds. The rest of the side is decent, though, and cleaned up well with standard noise reduction.
