Talking Dust Bowl Blues

Back in 1927

I had a little farm that I called "The Heaven"

Well, the price's 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

Oh, 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' an' a-rolling

O'er 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 it going pretty fast, there wasn't even stopping

And a-bouncing up and down, like popcorn popping

And 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 give that rollin' Ford a shove

And was a-gonna coast as far as I could

Commence coasting, picking up speed

Was a hairpin turn, I didn't make it

Man alive, I'm a-telling you

And the fiddles and the guitars really flew

That Ford took off like a flying squirrel

An' it flew halfway around the world

Scattered wives and children

All over the side of that mountain

We got out to West Coast broke

So dad-gum 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 I'd-, if it'd been just a little bit thinner

Some of these here politicians

Could've seen through it