The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #4594   Message #25088
Posted By: Joe Offer
04-Apr-98 - 03:54 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: My Old Man (Jerry Jeff Walker)
Subject: Lyr Add: MY OLD MAN (Jerry Jeff Walker)
There are two songs, Axe. Steve Goodman's is a good song, too, but I think it would be difficult for anybody but Steve to do. Maybe somebody else will post that one. Here's the one by Jerry Jeff Walker.

MY OLD MAN
Words and music by Jerry Jeff Walker
As recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker on “Mr Bojangles” (1968)
©1968, Cotillion Music, Inc., & Danel Music, Inc.

My old man had a rounder's soul.
He'd hear an old freight train, and then he'd have to go.

He said he'd been blessed with a gypsy bone,
And that's the reason, I guess, that he'd been cursed to roam.

He came to town back before the war,
And didn't even know what it was that he was lookin' for.

He carried a tattered bag for his violin,
Full of lots of songs and the places he'd been.

He talked real easy and had a smiling way.
He’d pass along to you when his fiddle played,

Makin' people drop their cares and woes,
To hum out loud those tunes that his fiddle bowed.

Those people there began to join that sound,
And ev’ryone in town was laughing, singing, dancing 'round.

Like the fiddler's tunes were all they heard that night,
Like some dream that says all the world is right.

The fiddler's eye caught one lady there.
She had that rolling flowing golden kind of hair.

He played for her as if she danced alone.
He played his fav'rite songs, the ones he called his own.

She alone was dancing in the room,
The only thing left moving to that fiddler's tune.

He played until she was the last to go,
Then he stopped and packed his case, said he'd take her home.

And all the nights that passed, a child was born,
And all the years that passed, love would keep them warm.

And all their lives they'd share that dream come true,
All because she danced so well his fiddle tune.

But the train next mornin' blew a lonesome sound,
As if she sang the blues of what she’d took from town.

And all that I recall, said when I was young,
Was no one else could really sing those songs he sung.

Chords: D Em / A D :// ^^^