Talking Dust Bowl Blues chords by Woody Guthrie

Chords with lyrics

Talking Dust Bowl Blues
   Lyrics and Music by Woody Guthrie

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

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


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


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

  Verse 5
    A augmentedA         D MajorD
  Man alive, I'm a-tellin' you,
     E MajorE
  the fiddles and the guitars really flew.
     A augmentedA              D MajorD
  That Ford took off like a flying squirrel
      E MajorE
  and it flew halfway around the world,
   A augmentedA
  scattered wives and children
         E MajorE       A augmentedA
  all over the side of that mountain.


  Verse 6
   A augmentedA        D MajorD
  We got out to the West Coast broke,
      E MajorE
  so dad-gum hungry I thought I'd croak,
            D MajorD
  so I bummed up a spud or two,
      E MajorE           A augmentedA
  and my wife fixed up a tater stew.
          D MajorD        A augmentedA
  We poured the kids full of it, mighty thin stew, though,
          E MajorE        A augmentedA
  you could read a magazine right through it.


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