The Story of King Porter Stomp Lyrics
Jelly Roll Morton

Er, this gentleman was named Porter King, as I before stated. And, of course, he seemed to have a kind of a yen for my style of playin’, although we had two diffferent styles of playin’. And, of course, he particularly liked this type of number that I was playin’, and that was the reason that I named it after him — but not Porter King. I changed the name backwards and named it “King Porter Stomp.”

Er, this tune become to be the outstanding favourite of every great hot band throughout the world that had the accomplishments and qualifications of playin’ it. And until today, this tune has been the cause of many great bands to come to fame. It has caused the outstanding tunes today to, er, to use the backgrounds that belong to “King Porter” in order to make great tunes of themselves.

What . . . er, when did you write this, Jelly?

Er, this tune was wrote the same year as “Alabama Bound,” in nineteen-five. It was wrote the same time with another tune that I wrote. Of course, I never got any credit for it. Mr. Williams — Clarence Williams — got the credit for it. It was “You Can Have It, I Don’t Want It.”

How does that go?

Er, well, it went something like this.

You Can Have It, I Don’t Want It

There was no words, it was a lot of foolish words to it.

You can have it, I don’t want it,
Papa, Lord God, take it from me,
Papa, Lord God, take it from me,
Oh, take it from me.

You can have it, I don’t want it,
That’s the thing I say,
Oh, my baby, yes, baby,
You can have it from me.

Of course, it didn’t sound so good, see? But, er, Clarence Williams thought it was all right, and he’d taken a number that was really his first hit. It was my material because I used to . . . In fact, I happened to be the man that taught Mr. Williams how to play. And of course I don’t intend to say anything unless it’s real facts, and it’s really fact. Of course, we’ll finish up by playing “King Porter Stomp” do you think?

Why didn’t, why didn’t you ever copyright any these tunes way back then?

Well, I’ll tell you why we didn’t copyright ‘em. We didn’t copyright ‘em for — that is for a great reason — not only me, but a many other. Why, the publishers thought that they could buy anything they wanted for fifteen, twenty dollars. Well, the fact was that, at that particular time, the sporting houses were all over the country and you could go in any town. If you was a good piano player, just as soon as you hit town, you had ten jobs waiting for you. So we all made a lot of money, and ten, or fifteen or twenty or a hundred dollars didn’t mean very much to us during those days. I’d really like to see those days back again. I’m telling you the truth. They were wonderful days.

So the publishers, we didn’t give ‘em anything. So they decided, ‘We know where to get ‘em.’ So they’d — a lot of publishers — would come out with tunes, our melodies, and they would steal ‘em. But we kept ‘em for our private material. That is, to battle each other in battles of music. Battles of music is old, ages old. And of course, if we had the best material, we was considered one of the best men. And of course, the best player always had the best jobs. And the best jobs always meant plenty of money. When I made a hundred dollars a day I thought I had a small day. And now today if I make ten, I think I’ve got a great day. That’s how that was.

Is there any, any other information you would like to ask?