Talking Dust Bowl Blues

     A                 D
    Back in nineteen twenty-seven,
       E
    I had a little farm and I called that heaven.
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    Well, the prices up and the rain come down,
           E
    and I hauled my crops all into town.
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    I got the money, bought clothes and groceries,
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    fed the kids, and raised a family.

     A                 D
    Rain quit and the wind got high,
              E
    and the black ol' dust storm filled the sky.
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    And I swapped my farm for a Ford machine,
           E
    and I poured it full of this gas-i-line.
            A                     D
     And I started, rockin' an' a-rollin',
  E                             A
    over the mountains, out towards the old Peach Bowl.

     A                  D
    Way up yonder on a mountain road,
             E
    I had a hot motor and a heavy load,
           A                        D
    I's a-goin' pretty fast, there wasn't even stoppin',
      E
    a-bouncin' up and down, like popcorn poppin'. 

          A         D
    Had a breakdown, sort of a nervous bustdown of some kind,
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    there was a feller there, a mechanic feller, said it was en-gine trouble.

     A                  D
    Way up yonder on a mountain curve,
          E
    it's way up yonder in the piney wood,
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    an' I give that rollin' Ford a shove,
         E                             A
    an' I's a-gonna coast as far as I could.
              D                     A
    Commence coastin', pickin' up speed,
           E                      A
    was a hairpin turn, I didn't make it.

     A                D
    Man alive, I'm a-tellin' you,
         E
    the fiddles and the guitars really flew.
          A                    D
    That Ford took off like a flying squirrel
             E
    an' it flew halfway around the world,
A
    scattered wives and childrens
                  E             A
    all over the side of that mountain.

     A                 D
    We got out to the West Coast broke,
        E
    so dad-gum hungry I thought I'd croak,
       A                D
    an' I bummed up a spud or two,
            E                         A
    an' my wife fixed up a tater stew.
                   D                A
    We poured the kids full of it, mighty thin stew, though,
                     E                A
   you could read a magazine right through it.
     A           D                    E                      A
    Always have figured that if it'd been just a little bit thinner,
                   E                              A
    some of these here politicians coulda seen through it.