Beside a Belgian Water Tank

	This is an adaptation of the American quatrain ballad, "The Dying Hobo," which was popularized by Jimmie Rodgers with a recording released on February 8, 1929.  Norman Cohen, in his usually thorough manner, gives a comprehensive history of the song(s) that travel under this and similar titles.  See Long Steel Rail, pp. 357-360.  
	The first recovered military adaptation of the folk song is printed in Dolph, pp. 113-114.  Since that work was initially copyrighted in 1929, and the Canfield collection dates of January through March of 1926, would give this version, "The Young Observer," precedence as the oldest reported.

Beside a Belgian waterfall
One sunny summer's day,
Beneath his shipwrecked battle-plane
A young observer lay,
His pilot on the telegraph pole
Was not completely dead,
And as he breathed his very last words,
The young observer said,

"We're going to a better land
Where everything is bright,
Where the whiskey grows on bushes,
Play poker every night.
You never have to work at all,
Just sit around and sing,
And there are beaucoup wild women,
Oh, Death, where is thy sting?"