Woody Guthrie - Talking Hard Work lyrics

While we are on the subject of hard work, I just wanted to tell you that I am a man who likes hard work.

I was born working and I worked my way up by hard work.

I ain’t ever got no where, but I got there by hard work.

Work of the hardest kind.

I been down and I been out

I been disgusted I been busted and I couldn’t be trusted.

I worked my way up and I worked my way down

I been drunk and I been sober.

I been baptized and hyjacked.

Worked my way in jail and I worked my way outta jail

Woke up a lot of mornin’s, didn’t know where I was at.

The hardest work I ever done was when I was tryin’ to get myself a worried woman to help ease my worried mind.

I’m gonna tell ya just how much work I had to do to get this woman I was tellin’ you about

I shook hands with 97 of her kinfolk and her blood relatives and I done just the same with 86 people whos’ just her friends and her neighbors

I kissed 73 babies and put dry pants on 34 of em’ well as others

Done this same thing well there are a lot of other things just like this.

I held 125 wild horses and put saddles and bridles on more than that

Harnessed some of the wildest and craziest teams in that whole country

I rode 14 loco broncos to a stand still

And I let 42 hound dogs lick me all over, 7 times I’s bit by hungry dogs and I was chewed all to pieces by rattlesnakes and water moccasins on 2 river bottoms

I chopped and carried 314 arm loads of stove wood

109 buckets of coal

Carried a gallon of kerosene 18 miles over the mountains

Got lost – lost a good pair of shoes in a mudhole

And I chopped and weeded 48 rows of short cotton

13 acres of bad corn

I cut the sticker weeds out of 11 back yards

All on account of cuz I wanted to show her that I was a man and I liked to work

I cleaned out 9 barn lofts

Cranked 31 cars, all makes and models

Pulled 3 cars out of mud holes, and 4 or 5 out of snow drifts

I dug 5 cisterns of water for some of her friends

Run all kinds of errands

Played the fiddle for 9 church meetin’s

I Joined 11 separate denominations

I joined up and signed up with 7 best trade unions I could find

I paid my wages, um, a, dues 6 months in advance

I waded 48 miles of swamps and 6 big rivers

Walked across 2 ranges of mountains and crossed 3 deserts

I got the fever, Sun stroke, Malaria, blue, moonstruck, skeeter bit, Poison Ivy and the 7-year itch and the blind staggers

I was give up for less, lost and dead a couple of times

Struck by lightning, struck by Congress, struck by friends and kinfolks well as by 3 cars on highways A lot of times in people’s hen-houses

I been hit and run down run over and walked on knocked around.

I’m just sittin’ here now tryin’ to study up what else I can do to show that women that I still ain’t afraid of hard work