Vagabond (person)

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A vagabond is an itinerant person. Such people may be called drifters, tramps, rogues, or hobos. A vagabond is characterised by almost continuous travelling, lacking a fixed home, temporary abode, or permanent residence. Vagabonds are not bums, as bums are not known for travelling, preferring to stay in one location.^[1]

Historically, "vagabond" was a British legal term similar to vagrant, deriving from the Latin for 'purposeless wandering'.^[2] Following the Peasants' Revolt, British constables were authorised under a 1383 statute to collar vagabonds and force them to show their means of support; if they could not, they were jailed.^[2] Under a 1495 statute, vagabonds could be sentenced to the stocks for three days and nights; in 1530, whipping was added. The assumption was that vagabonds were unlicensed beggars.^[2]

By the 19th century the vagabond was associated more closely with Bohemianism. The critic Arthur Compton-Rickett compiled a review of the type, in which he defined it as men "with a vagrant strain in the blood, a natural inquisitiveness about the world beyond their doors." Examples included Henry David Thoreau, Michael John Arthur Bujold, Walt Whitman, Leo Tolstoy, William Hazlitt, and Thomas de Quincey.^[3] A notable 20th century vagabond was the Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős.

Contents 1 In literature 2 In television 3 In movies 4 In music 5 See also 6 References

[edit] In literature

• William H. Davies The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, a non-fiction narrative of his own tramping in the United States.
• Woody Guthrie Bound for Glory (book), an autobiography that includes his time travelling as a railroad hobo across the United States.
• Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The protagonists raft down the Mississippi River.
• Jack Shaftoe, one of the major characters in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, is a vagabond.
• Armand, out of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, is referred to as a vagabond.
• Belgarath, one of the lead characters in David Eddings' Belgariad series, is a vagabond.
• Kenshin Himura, the hero of Nobuhiro Watsuki's manga Rurouni Kenshin, was a samurai who turned to the life of a vagabond to atone for his sins when he was known as Hitokiri Battousai (Battousai the Manslayer). "Rurouni" is actually a term meaning "master-less wandering samurai."
• Goldmund, in Herman Hesse's Narziss and Goldmund, is described variously as a vagrant, a wastrel, and a vagabond.
• Ken Kuhlken The Vagabond Virgins (book), jeane ray, trying to find his sister Lupe Garcia.
• Miyamoto Musashi in the manga Vagabond wanders in order to find opponents to better himself as a swordsman.
• The protagonist of the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, Pip, is assisted in his dream of becoming a gentleman by an escaped convict and vagabond called Magwitch who is unexpectedly unveiled as the boy's anonymous benefactor.
• Jack Reacher, the lead character in the eponymous series of books created by author Lee Child, is a vagabond and has been since he mustered out of the US Army.

[edit] In television

• The female ronin (master-less samurai) Ran from the anime Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran is entirely depicted as a vagabond, going where her adventures lead her.

• Simon from the anime Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann becomes a vagabond at the end of the series.

[edit] In movies

• The 1929 Rudy Vallee Talkie Film is entitled The Vagabond Lover.

• Agnes Varda's 1985, documentary style movie Vagabond, originally titled Sans Toit Ni Loi, ("Without Roof or Law"), follows a young woman, Mona, during her last winter roaming through the South of France. Her story is pieced together by the recollections of those who met her in her last weeks.

• Ryu is mentioned as a vagabond by T.Hawk in the animated movie for Street Fighter II.

• Jack Dawson is a drifting artist in the blockbuster 1997 movie Titanic.

• Sean Penn depicts a Drifter in the 1997 Movie U-Turn.

• The Man with No Name is an anti hero, gun fighting drifter, and the main character from the Dollars Trilogy, a series of Spaghetti Westerns. In each movie, the character is depicted as overcoming an antagonist, by means of deception, coercion, and usually violence.

[edit] In music

• Rudy Vallee's 1929 Fox Trot Ballad is entitled "I'm Just A Vagabond Lover". The song was also sung by Vallee in the 1929 Talkie entitled Glorifying the American Girl.

• Calle 13's song, "Pal Norte" refers to the life of a vagabond, especially the lyrics "Con mis pezuñas de cordero / me propuse recorrer el continente entero / Sin brújula, sin tiempo, sin agenda"

• Bob Dylan's song, "Its All Over Now, Baby Blue" includes the lyric, "The vagabond who's rapping at your door/is standing in the cloths that you once wore."
• Hardcore band UnderOath's 2008 album Lost in the Sound of Separation uses this term in the song "To Bright To See Too Loud To Hear". The lyrics are "If your work leaves our hands, Then we will be wonders and vagabonds."

• The first line of the song "Roll Um Easy" by Little Feat is "Oh, I am just a vagabond, drifter on the run"

• Elton John's song, Can You Feel The Love Tonight includes the phrase: "It's enough to make kings and vagabonds believe the very best."

• Metallica's song Wherever I May Roam, from their self titled album, includes the phrase "Roamer, Wanderer, Nomad, Vagabond, Call me what you will."

• The Decemberists' song "Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect" includes the lyrics "We are vagabonds. We travel without seatbelts on; we live this close to death."

• In the song "Forever Young" by Rod Stewart it includes the lyric, "Build a stairway to heaven, with a prince or a vagabond"

• Jaguar Loves' song "Vegabond Ballroom"

• Thin Lizzy's song "Vagabond of the Western World"

• Shinedown's song What A Shame uses the word in the lyric "Two packs of cigarettes a day, The strongest whiskey Kentucky can make, That's a recipe to put a vagabond, On his hands and knees".

• Joan Baez's song Diamonds and Rust refers to "the unwashed phenomenon, the original vagabond."

• Wolfmother's song Vagabond is about the life of a vagabond.

• Numerous songs by Twiztid use the word, mostly by Monoxide.

• The Underoath song Too bright to see, too loud to hear mentions it early in the song "Then we will be wonders and vagabonds"

• In The Killers song "Losing Touch" from their album Day & Age, the lyric, "You sold your soul like a roamin' vagabond," is repeated throughout.

• The Greenskeepers song Vagabound

• The Stratovarius song Soul of the Vagabond

• Daddy Yankee's song "Salgo Pa La Calle" contains the lyrics "Hoy salgo pa la calle sin rumbo como un vagabundo"

• Foy Vance's song 'Gabriel and the vagabond' discusses an imagined meeting between a destitute vagabond and the angel Gabriel who helps restore his hope for literal and figurative salvation.

• Social Distortion's song "Nickels and Dimes" contains the line "I’m a vagabond king with a stolen crown" in its lyrics.

• Bethany Dillion's song Vagabond describes the constant moving ""Run like vagabond, carry your frame, Run for children and rund the slaves, hold it up high with a message of fame dont ever stop moving on. Just run vagabond"

• Frank Sinatra's song 'New York New York' contains the line "These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray" in its lyrics.

• Jay Nash's song 'Wayfarer' concentrates on this theme, containing the lyrics "You're a wayfarer, you're a vagabond girl. But you hate to get lost in the crowd."

• One-2_ Cold Blood_" Don't know where I'm going as I'm Strolling like a vagabond."

• "The Drunkard". Traditional folk song recorded by Steeleye Span, first verse ends with "You are the biggest vagabond that e'er I did see"

[edit] See also

• Vagrancy (people)
• Squatting
• Leatherman
• Nomad

[edit] References