Jimmie Rodgers had a great affection for the railroads and the men who
ran them and during the years he worked on the roads He spent most of
the time with the New Orleans and Northeastern lines which ran between
his home town of Meridian Mississippi and New Orleans.
And Jimmie became able to talk in the language of the railroaders
Like such expressions as hog-head and hot-box quil ball in the jack skinner
always filled his conversation and he wrote songs about these men and
their language.
The mule skinner was usually a man with a mule who hired himself
And his mule out by the day to do whatever had to be done
He might drag ties and rails or he might just move freshly cut timber from
the right of way the mule skinner was the subject of one of Jimmie
Rodgers's most popular blue yodles...