Smokey Joe Of The Poconos

(album: The Hunting Ground - 2021)

Smokey Joe of the Poconos
Gonna get your bow
Gonna hunt for doe
Gotta dress'r out in the dark of night
Gotta feed my family by the morning light
I got the bones, bones
They're boiling down out back
I gotta a pot a' coffee
Steaming on the stove
I'm taking the hides to the railway lines
For the tannery in eastern Monroe

Smokey Joe of the Poconos
In the wintertime
You gotta hang the bow
Gotta travel now in the dark of night
Gotta get to cutting trees by the morning light
They got the groves, groves
Of chestnut oaks
And the hemlocks are falling like a breeze
Strip the bark from the pine
To boil tannin for hides
For the tannery on Pocono Creek

Smokey Joe, they know my name
From the Catskill Mountains
Up to Lake Champlain
My invitation must be lost in the mail
From the Bowmen of Philadelphia

Smokey Joe, another railroad line
Up to Buffalo
They're hauling anthracite
They've got the steel work on Ontario
Or the icehouse near Mount Pocono
They got the roads, roads
They're widening through
On the Sullivan and Lackawanna Trails
And the passenger cars
Are coming up from Hoboken
On the DL&W rails

Smokey Joe, they know my name
From the Catskill Mountains
Up to Lake Champlain
My invitation must be lost in the mail
From the Bowmen of Philadelphia

Smokey Joe, they know my name
From the Catskill Mountains
Up to Lake Champlain
Smokey Joe, they know my name
From Allegheny County to The Finger Lakes
Smokey Joe, they know my name
I can hunt with a bow
And I'm a jack of trades
My invitation must be lost in the mail
From the United Bowmen of Philadelphia