Talking Dust Bowl Blues chords by Guthrie Woody

Talking Dust Bowl Blues
   Lyrics and Music by Woody Guthrie

  Verse 1
    A         D
  Back in nineteen twenty-seven,
    E
  I had a little farm and I called that heaven.
        A        D
  Well, the prices up and the rain come down,
      E
  and I hauled my crops all into town.
        A       D
  I got the money, bought clothes and groceries,
   E              A
  fed the kids, and raised a family.

  Verse 2
   A         D
  Rain quit and the wind got high,
       E
  and the black old dust storm filled the sky.
      A          D
  And I swapped my farm for a Ford machine,
      E
  and I poured it full of this gas-o-line.
       A          D
   And I started, rockin' an' a-rolling',
   E                 A
  over the mountains, out towards the old Peach Bowl.


  Verse 3
   A          D
  Way up yonder on a mountain road,
       E
  I had a hot motor and a heavy load,
     A             D
  Got- a-goin' pretty fast, there wasn't even stopping',
    E
  a-bouncing up and down, like popcorn popping'.
      A     D
  Had a breakdown, sort of a nervous breakdown of some kind,
        E                      A
  there was a feller there, a mechanic feller, said it was engine trouble.


  Verse 4
   A           D
  Way up yonder on a mountain curve,
    E
  a way up yonder in the piney wood,
     A        D
   I gave that rolling Ford a shove,
     E             A
  was a-gonna coast as far as I could.
        D          A
  Commence coasting, pickin' up speed,
      E           A
  was a hairpin turn, I didn't make it.


  Verse 5
    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
  and it flew halfway around the world,
   A
  scattered wives and children
         E       A
  all over the side of that mountain.


  Verse 6
   A        D
  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,
      E           A
  and 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.


        D          E           A
   Always have figured that if it'd been just a little bit thinner,
         E                A
  some of these here politicians could of seen through it.