Talkin’ Dust Bowl

Guthrie

Back in nineteen twenty seven
I had a little farm, I called that Heaven
The prices up and the rain come down
And I hauled my crops all into town
I got the money
Bought clothes and groceries
Fed the kids and raised a big family
But the rain quit and the wind got high
A black old dust storm filled the sky
I traded my farm for a Ford machine
Poured it full of this gasoline
Started rocking and rolling
Deserts and mountains to California
Way up yonder on a mountain road
Hot motor and a heavy load
Going pretty fast I wasn't even stopping
Bouncing up and down like popcorn popping
I had a breakdown —
Kind of a nervous bustdown
The mechanic fellow there charged me five bucks
Said it was engine trouble
Way up yonder on a mountain curve
Way up yonder in the piney wood
I gave that rolling Ford a shove
And I coast as far as I could
Commencing rolling
Picking up speed
Come a hairpin turn and...
I didn't make it
No man alive I'm telling you
That the fiddles and the guitars really flew
That Ford took off like a flying squirrel
And it flew halfway around the world
Scattered the wives and children
All over the side of that mountain
Got to California so dad gum broke
Dad gum hungry that I thought I'd choke
I bummed up a spud or two
And a wife fixed up some 'tater stew
We poured the kids full of it
Mighty skinny kids
Looked like a tribe of thermometers running around
No man I swear to you
That was surely mighty thin stew
So damn thin I really mean
You could read a magazine right through it
Look at the pictures, too
Pretty whisky bottles and naked women
Always have thought and always have figured
That if that damn stew had been just a little bit thinner
Some of these here politicians could have seen through it