Cash, Johnny - Joshua Gone Barbados Lyrics

the song was written by bob dylan?

Lyrics
Cane standin' in the fields gettin' old and red
Lot of misery in Georgetown dreamin' layin' dead
Joshua head of the government he said strike for better pay
Cane cutters are strikin' but Joshua gone away
Joshua gone Barbados staying in a big hotel
People on St Vincent got many sad tales to tell
The sugar mill owner told the strikers I don't need you to cut my cane
Bring me another bunch of fellas your strike be all in vain
Get a bunch of tough fellas bring 'em from Zion Hill
Bring 'em in a bus to Georgetown know somebody could kill
Sunny Child the overseer I swear he's an ignorant man
Walkin' the the canefields pistol in his hand
Joshua gone Barbados just like he don't know people on the island got no place to go
Police givin' protection new fellas cuttin' the cane
Strikers can't do nothin' strike be all in vain
Sunny Child cussed the strikers wave his pistol round
They're beatin' Sunny with the cutlers beat him to the ground
There's a lot of misery in Georgetown you can hear all the women bawl
Joshua gone Barbados he don't care at all
Cane standin' in the fields gettin' old and red
Sunny Child in the hospital pistol on his bed
I wish I could go to England Trinidad or Curacao
People on the island got no place to go
Joshua gone Barbados stayin' in a big hotel
People on St Vincent got many sad tales to tell

I am a Vincentian. I wasn't born when they had the strike. Thank you Mr. Johnny cash for singing about us way back then. He must have visited our Island at some point.
May your soul rest in Peace.

I'm Vincentian and I only heard this song a couple of months ago. It's not totally accurate tho.

Devvy King: Please do tell us what is not accurate. Lest it then be a learning lesson for us all. Oh, and then please listen to Johnny Cash's "God Bless Robert E. Lee" tune, and do the same. We must learn.

Does Johnny sings that low back vocal?

thank you!

i don't have the album, but i recognize that voice behind J.R., it's my old pal Hoyt Axton. i'd know it anywhere. this isn't tom rush or eric von schmidt, but it sure is tasty. i just love this groove, historically correct or not...thanks!

i have known and liked this song for many years - - heard it via tom
rush - - but i have come to discover that it is maybe 95-100% sure that
it is historically wrong - - and that it falsely portrays ebenezer
joshua as some sort of sellout, which i believe he was not. - - wiki
him and see - - i believe joshua did NOT betray the strike and run
off to a nice hotel, that von schmidt basically got bad info from a
local (one with a grudge?) and, unfortunately for joshua's reputation,
made a good but inaccurate song about the whole thing. too bad

True. However I don't seek historically accurate facts in song lyrics. I still enjoy this song very.

It don't think it was Joshua who went to Barbados. It was the Haynes  ( I think that was his name) who left and never returned to SVG.

It was Ebenezer Joshua who went to advocate for the end of Colonialism. He encouraged the workers to strike for Higher wages. Flick Haynes who died not too long ago, he stayed on the Island and monitored the situation.
Thats as far as I recall and as the songwriter recalls.
Stay blessed. Vincy to the bone.

Plenty of St. Vincentians I talked to knew all about the strike.

Technically the nationality is Vincentian...I should know...I'm a Vincentian

Plenty of Vincentians. That's what we are called.
Take care.. Vincy to the bone..

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Worse translation I’ve ever read…

it be what it be. Thank you Mr Cash...

Hi everyone......you can call me Joshua

Cash = Good. Tom Rush = The BEST.

In my opinion Johnny Cash is the best.

Yes, Johnny Cash is VERY Good. But who, pray tell, is Tom Rush??? Really.

Might be Rush, but for Eric himself, his favorite cover of this song that he wrote so long ago was performed by Cash. How do I know? I was a friend of Eric's in the last five years of his life. By then, Eric had lost his vocal cords from throat cancer. He did not have a computer. The only communication link he used on a daily basis was a fax machine. He kept in touch with his daughter, Caitlin, by fax. He made doctor's appointments by fax. It was weird at first, because I didn't own a fax machine, but thankfully, I was able to make my computer function as a fax (big deal in 2003). Eventually, I convinced Eric that a computer would open his world to a whole new level: he could communicate by email, he could talk to someone instantly via the old fashioned messaging (no Facebook or smartphones back then). Surprisingly, after some time and much discussion, Eric bought an Apple. A good friend and fellow musician helped him through the whole process, until one day my email inbox dinged because of an email from Eric. WOW! I was so pumped-up. 24 hours later, my computer dinged with a fax from Eric. He hated it. For the rest of the time Eric was on earth, that Apple set in his studio home collecting dust.So, I have hundreds of faxes I've saved from Eric on disc but haven't arranged them in order. On that disc, there is a lot of discussion about his early days in music: the folk scene with Baez; Dylan; Farnia; and history. We faxed a lot about the Lewis and Clark expedition, because I had talked Eric into making one last massive historical painting about that expedition. This was during the centennial years of celebration of that expedition.But, back to the music discussion. There's a fax in there somewhere about Eric loving Cash's cover of "Joshua Gone Barbados". Even if the song's lyrics are not so accurate as others have stated - I'm not able to argue that point one way or another - it's still a beautiful song. Thanks, Jan, for posting it here.

Although a Johnny Cash fan never heard this song (or by others). Eric von Schmidt did a fantastic story about a workers strike in 1962 in St. Vincent. Most surprising is that most Vincentians have never heard this song about an episode which eventually led to the demise of the sugar industry here, not even some radio stations! Hope we can get a karaoke version to keep alive the memory of the late Chief Minister Ebenezer Joshua - champion of workers rights who may be the next national hero.

Fantastic version. Boy, old Johnny was great. Tome Rush did do a beautiful version as well.

And Joshua, head of the government, he say strike for better pay
Cane cutters are striking, Joshua gone away

Tom Rush also had a great version.

This is a great version of this. And that's a wicked cool picture of Johnny on that album cover.

all good all good