Talking Hard Work - Woody Guthrie

While we are on the subject of hard work
I just wanted to say you that, "I always was 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 got hijacked
I been robbed for cash and I been robbed on a credit

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 several times
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 craziest and wildest 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
My water moccasins and rattlesnakes 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 'cause
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
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 eell 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