Get Up Mule

    There is an obvious problem with spending all your time listening to radio shows from sixty, seventy, or eighty years ago. This is that when you find something you're enthusiastic about, you may have a fair amount of trouble finding more information about it. Usually I've been pretty lucky, because the Internet is an amazing resource and I'm a fairly talented searcher. However, now I'm stumped.
    There was a show for the black troops during World War II called Jubilee. It was a huge mountain of awesome. There was a song that I thought was performed often, but listening closely it appears to have only been on one show that I happen to hear a lot. The song was performed by Erskine Hawkins and was called "Get Up, Mule." It was a motivational song designed to whip up patriotic fervor among farmers. It really works; all these years later, I feel like going out and plowing the north 40 when I hear it. The refrain is all the I get clearly and only part of that is completely clear: "We've got to farm to win this fight." That follows something that sounds like "Hard to the left/G to the right," but "lean to the right" makes more sense. Unfortunately my knowledge of mule-based farming is limited; it's possible that the former would have made perfect sense in the early '40s.
    Googling, for once, is beyond my powers. Erskine Hawkins was a popular bandleader and there's at least one record of his extant, but it doesn't feature "Get Up Mule." It's really a kickbutt song and it's so frustrating not being able to share it. Well, I could of course rip it from the Jubilee CD and edit the file, but it would be neat if I could find a more official source. For now, you'll have to take my word for it. Or search Jubilee old-time radio on archive.org, which you ought to do anyway. And anyone knowing anybody at Smithsonian Folkways, I'd love to talk to them.