Woody Guthrie - EAST TEXAS RED guitar chord

East Texas Red

by: Woody Guthrie

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Down in the scrub oak timbers, Of the South East Texas Gulf,

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There used to ride a brakeman, And the brakeman double tough.

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He worked the town of Kilgore, And Longview, nine miles down,

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And us travellers called him East Texas Red, The meanest bull around.

If you rode by night or broad daylight, In the wind, in the snow and

sun,

You'd always see little East Texas Red, Sporting his smooth running gun.

The tail got switched by stems and the mains, And everybody said

That the meanest man on the shiny irons Was little East Texas Red.

It was early in the morning, And along towards nine or ten,

When a couple of boys on the hunt of a job Stood in the blizzardy wind.

Hungry and cold they knocked on the doors Of the working folks around

For a piece of meat or a spud or two To boil their stew around.

Red come down the cinder dump, And he flagged down Number Two,

He kicked their bucket over a bush And dumped out all of their stew.

One traveller said "Mr. East Texas Red, You better get yo' business

fixed right.

Because your gonna ride your little black train Just one year from

tonight."

Red just laughed as he climbed the bank And swung on the side of a

wheeler.

The boys caught a tanker to Seminole, And westward to Amarillo.

They struck them a job of oil field work And they followed the pipeline

down,

And it took them lots of places till One year had rolled around.

On one cold and wintery day They hooked them a Gulf bound train.

They shivered and they shook with dough in their clothes, To ol' Kilgore

again.

Over hills of sand and the hard frozen roads Where the cottons wagons

rolled,

Out past the town of Kilgore And on to ol' Longview.

With their warm suits of clothes and their overcoats, They walked into a

store.

They paid the man for some meat and spuds, And boiled their stew once

more.

They walked the ties back to the yard, And they came to the same ol'

spot,

Were East Texas Red had one year ago Dumped their last stew pot.

The smoke from their fire went higher and higher, And a man come down

the line,

He ducked his head in the blizzardy wind, And waved ol' Number nine.

He walked on down the cinder dump And he come to the same ol' spot,

And there was the same two men again Around that same stew pot.

Red went to his knees and he hollered "Please, Don't pull that trigger

on me.

I never did get my business fixed." But he never got a say.

A gun wheeled out of an overcoat, And the blade, he owed one too,

Then Red lay dead, while the other two men Sat down to eat their stew.