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 hijacked

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 ninety seven of her kinfolk and Her blood relatives
And I done just the same with eighty six people
Who's just her friends and her neighbors

I kissed seventy three babies and put dry pants
On thirty four of em', well as others done this same thing
Well there are a lot of other things just like this
I held one hundred twenty five 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 fourteen loco broncos to a stand still
And I let forty two hound dogs lick me all over seven times
I's bit by hungry dogs and I was chewed all to pieces
By rattlesnakes and water moccasins on two river bottoms

I chopped and carried three hundred fourteen arm loads
Of stove wood, one hundred nine buckets of coal
Carried a gallon of kerosene eighteen miles over the mountains
Got lost, lost a good pair of shoes in a mud hole
And I chopped and weeded forty eight rows of short cotton

Thirteen acres of bad corn, I cut the sticker weeds
Out of eleven 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 nine barn lofts, cranked thirty one cars
All makes and models, pulled three cars out of mud holes
And four or five out of snow drifts

I dug five cisterns of water for some of her friends
Run all kinds of errands, played the fiddle for nine
Church meetin's I Joined eleven separate denominations
I joined up and signed up with seven best trade unions
I could find, I paid my wages, a, dues six months in advance

I waded forty eight miles of swamps and six big rivers
Walked across two ranges of mountains and crossed
Three deserts, I got the fever, sun stroke, Malaria, blue
Moonstruck, skeeter bit, poison Ivy and the seven 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 three 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

Woody Guthrie - Great Dust Storm

Dec 2006

1. Great Dust Storm
2. Buffalo Skinners
3. Tom Joad, Pt. 1
4. Tom Joad, Pt. 2
5. Talking Hard Work
6. Hard Travellin'
7. Jesus Christ
8. New York Town
9. Blowin' Down This Road (I Ain't Gonna Be Treated This Way)
10. This Land Is Your Land
11. Gypsy Davy
12. Cumberland Gap
13. Vigilante Man
14. Philadelphia Lawyer
15. John Henry
16. Muleskinner Blues