Talking Dust Bowl Blues

Back in Nineteen Twenty-Seven
I had a little farm that I called heaven
Well, 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 family

Well the rain quit and the wind got high
And the black ol' dust storm filled the sky
And I swapped my farm for a Ford machine
And I poured it full of this gas-i-line
And I started, rockin' and a-rollin'
Over the mountains, out towards the old Peach Bowl

Way up yonder on a mountain road
I had a hot motor and a heavy load
Got a-goin' pretty fast, there wasn't even stoppin'
And a-bouncin' up and down, like popcorn poppin'
I had a breakdown, sort of a nervous breakdown of some kind
There was a feller there, a mechanic feller
Said it was engine trouble

Way up yonder on a mountain curve
Way up yonder in the piney wood
I gave that rollin' Ford a shove
And was a-gonna coast as far as I could
Commence coastin', pickin' up speed
Was a hairpin turn, I didn't make it

Well man alive, I'm tellin' you
And the fiddles and the guitars really flew
And that Ford took off like a flying squirrel
And it flew halfway around the world
Scattered wives and children
All over the side of that mountain

We got out to the West Coast broke
So doggon' hungry I thought I'd croak
So I bummed up a spud or two
And my wife fixed up a tater stew
We poured the kids full of it
Mighty thin stew, though
You could read a magazine right through it

Well I always have figured that
If it'd been just a little bit thinner
Some of these here politicians coulda seen right through it