Railroad men drinking up blood like wine?

[Bonobo]

Where did this idea first come up?

It can be heard both in Bascom Lamar Lunsford's "Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground" as well as Bob Dylan's "Memphis Blue Again".

Does anyone have any idea? I am really curious.

[struggle4progress]

1. "recorded April 1928 in Ashland, Kentucky"

http://www.archive.org/details/Mole

The song seems to be a conglomerate of others, with modifications

"See me coming in with my twenty dollar bill; Yes, Sammie where you been so long?"
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/longtimecoming/dockboggs/lyrics/78s/sammie_where.html

"I don't like no railroad man, Railroad man he'll kill you if he can, I don't like no railroad man."
http://trad.appspot.com/song/I_Don't_Like_No_Railroad_Man

I might guess that Lunsford actually heard a number of unusual variants of such songs and jimmied together some of the more striking phrases into this particular strange lyrical work. The link above indicates that "I don't like no railroad man" had its origins in post Civil War black music, protesting white treatment of blacks: if so, the "drink up your blood like wine" might have had its origin in the white terror against blacks, and might later have been retained in a sanitized song about "railroad men" that black singers could sing in white company, understood as a reference by listening blacks without being understood by the whites

[Bonobo]

2. Thank you for the reply.

I will check out your links when I can!

[struggle4progress]

8. For some reason the "Railroad man" link stopped working for me, but

this one still works:

http://trad.appspot.com/song/I_Don't_Like_No_Railroad_Man

[Brickbat]

7. I'd also guess the folk singer's antipathy toward railroad goons has something to do with it, too.

[RandomThoughts]

3. Well if it says drinking blood like wine.

It could be a comment on communion.

The whole vampire thing could be a spinning of a good story into a bad way of thinking on something. But by saying drinking blood of people, like people drink wine in remembrance, it can be saying bad things about those blood drinkers compared to other thoughts.

Rail men are engineers, people that set social policy or economic policy usually in secret.

Mole in the ground, that one is probably digger.

and in the tunnels can be bad or good dependant on metaphor. Can be the tunnel between life and afterlife, or guide path to afterlife, or any idea of any form of travel through difficulty like through the valley of darkness, a dark area on the way to some better place.

Some think of tunnels as just bad from being in the earth. Then some think on it as things like people that believe quietly in their hearts also because of how some beliefs were not discussed openly in society.

Many ideas for tunnel.

[Bonobo]

4. I just found this cool video. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2WywwxWbvY

[Orrex]

5. Lady Gaga did it best.

[Orrex]

6. It just occurred to me that Mazzy Star had a similar lyric

Red, oh red
The taste of blood on lips of wine

--from Taste of Blood