been recorded by other performers. The song is sometimes known by one of its verses, "Tempie let your hair roll down", and is the basis for the campfire song "I Wish I Was a Little Bar of Soap". Bob Dylan, who listened to Smith's Anthology, echoed a line from this song; "'Cause a railroad man they'll kill you when he can/And drink up your blood like wine," as recorded in Lunsford's "I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground" is echoed by Dylan's verse "Mona tried to tell me/To stay away from the train line/She said that all the railroad men/Just drink up your blood like wine" on his song "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again" on the album Blonde on Blonde, recorded in 1966. Literature The song is mentioned by Salman Rushdie's character Ormus in his work The Ground Beneath Her Feet. In his book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century, the author Greil Marcus writes of Lunsford's recording of the song: Now what the singer wants is obvious, and almost impossible to comprehend. He wants to be delivered from his life and to be changed into a creature insignificant and despised. He wants to see nothing and to be seen by no-one. He wants to destroy the world and to survive it. That’s all he wants. The performance is quiet, steady, and the quiet lets you in...You can imagine what it would be like to want what the singer wants. It is an almost impossible negation, at the edge of pure nihilism, a demand to prove that the world is nothing, a demand to be next to nothing and yet it is comforting. Marcus comments on the song as a precursor to the music Bob Dylan and The Band recorded in Woodstock in 1967; Marcus also discussed "Mole" in his liner notes for The Basement Tapes, released by Columbia Records in 1975. Alexander Stern, in his blog, suggests that moles like to be underground, and that the songs is about seeking comfort. Recordings Bascom Lamar Lunsford on Anthology of American Folk Music Smithsonian Folkways 1952 Cisco Houston Patrick Sky Two Steps Forward, One Step Back Michael Cooney "Singer of Old Songs" (1975) Jackson C. Frank on his self-titled album Jackson C. Frank (1965). The song is credited under the title of Kimbie. Steve Suffet on his CD Now the Wheel Has