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Talking Dust Bowl Blues • Woody Guthrie
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Lyrics and Music by Woody Guthrie
Verse 1
AD
Back in nineteen twenty-seven,
E
I had a little farm and I called that heaven.
AD
Well, the prices up and the rain come down,
E
and I hauled my crops all into town.
AD
I got the money, bought clothes and groceries,
EA
fed the kids, and raised a family.
Verse 2
AD
Rain quit and the wind got high,
E
and the black old dust storm filled the sky.
AD
And I swapped my farm for a Ford machine,
E
and I poured it full of this gas-o-line.
AD
And I started, rockin' an' a-rolling',
EA
over the mountains, out towards the old Peach Bowl.
Verse 3
AD
Way up yonder on a mountain road,
E
I had a hot motor and a heavy load,
AD
Got- a-goin' pretty fast, there wasn't even stopping',
E
a-bouncing up and down, like popcorn popping'.
AD
Had a breakdown, sort of a nervous breakdown of some kind,
EA
there was a feller there, a mechanic feller, said it was engine trouble.
Verse 4
AD
Way up yonder on a mountain curve,
E
a way up yonder in the piney wood,
AD
I gave that rolling Ford a shove,
EA
was a-gonna coast as far as I could.
DA
Commence coasting, pickin' up speed,
EA
was a hairpin turn, I didn't make it.
Verse 5
AD
Man alive, I'm a-tellin' you,
E
the fiddles and the guitars really flew.
AD
That Ford took off like a flying squirrel
E
and it flew halfway around the world,
A
scattered wives and children
EA
all over the side of that mountain.
Verse 6
AD
We got out to the West Coast broke,
E
so dad-gum hungry I thought I'd croak,
D
so I bummed up a spud or two,
EA
and my wife fixed up a tater stew.
DA
We poured the kids full of it, mighty thin stew, though,
EA
you could read a magazine right through it.
DEA
Always have figured that if it'd been just a little bit thinner,
EA
some of these here politicians could of seen through it.