Talking Dust Bowl Blues chords by Woody Guthrie

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.