East Texas Red chords by Tom Russell

Chords with lyrics

Tuning: Standard (E MajorE A augmentedA D MajorD G+G BB E MajorE)

Intro:
C majorC

Verse 1:

Down in the scrub oak country
    FF        C majorC
To the South East Texas Gulf
C majorC
There used to ride a brakeman
 DmDm       G+G
A augmentedA brakeman double tough
  C majorC
He worked the town of Kilgore
  FF           C majorC
And Longview, twelve miles down
    FF                    A minorAm
And the travellers all said, little East Texas Red
    G+G       C majorC
Was the meanest bull around

Verse:
C majorC
If you rode by night or the broad daylight
    FF         C majorC
Or the wintry wind or the sun
C majorC
You could always see little East Texas Red
 DmDm             G+G
A-sporting his smooth running gun
    C majorC
And the tail got switched down the stems and mains
  FF     C majorC
And everybody said
     FF          A minorAm
That the meanest bull on them shiny irons
  G+G         C majorC
Was little East Texas Red

Verse:
C majorC
It was on a cold and a windy old night
   FF          C majorC
And along towards nine or ten
C majorC
A augmentedA couple of boys on the hunt of a job
   DmDm            G+G
They stood in that blizzardry wind
     C majorC
They were hungry and cold and they knocked on the doors
    FF        C majorC
Of the working people around
   FF         A minorAm
For a piece of meat or a carrot or spud
    G+G       C majorC
Just to boil the stew around

Verse:
C majorC
Well, East Texas Red comes down the line
    FF             C majorC
And he swung off that old Number Two
C majorC
He kicked their bucket over a bush
    DmDm           G+G
And he dumped out all of their stew
    C majorC
And the travellers said, "Little East Texas Red
      FF         C majorC
You better get your business straight
    FF           A minorAm
'Cause you're gonna ride the little black train
   G+G        C majorC
Just one year from today"

Verse:
C majorC
Well, Red he laughed and he climbs on the bank
    FF            C majorC
And he swings off the side of a wheeler
C majorC
And the boys caught a tanker to Seminole
   DmDm     G+G
Then west to Amarillo
     C majorC
And they caught 'em a job of oil field work
     FF           C majorC
And they followed the pipeline down
  FF         A minorAm
It took 'em a lot of places before
  G+G        C majorC
The year had rolled around

Verse:
C majorC
Then on a cold and a windy morning
   FF            C majorC
They caught 'em a Gulf bound train
C majorC
They shivered and shook with the dough in their clothes
    DmDm        G+G
To the scrub oak flats again
      C majorC
With their warm suit of clothes and their overcoats on
   FF       C majorC
They walked into a store
   FF           A minorAm
They paid the man for some meat and stuff
  G+G         C majorC
To boil the stew once more

Verse:
C majorC
The ties they tracked down that cinder dump
     FF          C majorC
'Til they came to the same old spot
C majorC
Where East Texas Red, just one year ago
  DmDm           G+G
Had dumped their last stew pot

Verse:
C majorC
Well, the smoke of their fire rose higher and higher
    FF         C majorC
And old Red come down the line
C majorC
With his head down low in the wintry wind
  DmDm        G+G
He waved old Number nine
    C majorC
And he walks on down to the jumble yard
    FF           C majorC
Then he comes to the same old spot
  FF           A minorAm
And there was the same two men again
 G+G          C majorC
Around that same stew pot

Verse:
C majorC
Red went to his knees and he hollered, "Please,
     FF          C majorC
Don't you pull your trigger on me
C majorC
I did not get my business straight"
    DmDm      G+G
But he did not get a say
     C majorC
'Cause a gun wheeled out of an overcoat
    FF          C majorC
And it played that old one-two
  FF           A minorAm
And Red was dead when the other two men
  G+G         C majorC
Sat down to eat their stew