The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #127591   Message #2848202
Posted By: catspaw49
23-Feb-10 - 07:10 PM
Thread Name: BS: Revenge Stories?
Subject: Lyr Add: EAST TEXAS RED (Woody Guthrie)
How about a song instead? Here is one of my favorites, the best "don't get mad, get even" song ever written........

EAST TEXAS RED
(Woody Guthrie)

Down in the scrub-oak country of the Southeast Texas gulf,
There used to ride a brakeman--and a brakeman double tough.
He worked the town of Kilgore, and Longview twelve miles down,
And the hobos said little East Texas Red was the meanest bull around.

Now, whether you ride in the dim moonlight, or the shimmering heat o' the sun,
You can always see little East Texas Red just a-sportin' his cool running gun,
And the tale got switched down to stems and mains and everybody said
That the meanest bull on them shiny irons was little East Texas Red.

It was on one cold and drizzly day 'long about nine or ten,
A couple o' bums on the hunt of a job stood in the blizzardy wind.
Hungry and cold, they knocked on the doors of the working people all around,
For a piece of meat, a carrot, or a spud for to boil their stew around.

Now, Red he come on down the line and he waved old number two.
He kicked their bucket over a bush and dumped out all of their stew.
One of the boys said, "East Texas Red, you better get your business straight,
'Cause you're gonna ride that little black train just one year from this date."

Now, Red he laughed and he clumb the bank and he jumped on the side of a
wheeler.
The boys caught a tanker for Seminole, then north to Amarillo.
They found them a job of oilfield work and followed that pipeline down.
It took 'em to a hell of a lot of places before that year had rolled around.

Then on one cold and drizzly day, they caught them a gulf-bound train,
Shivered and shook with the dough in their pockets to the scrub-oak flats again.
Over hills of sand and hard-froze roads where the cotton wagons roll
On past the town of Kilgore and on to old Longview.

The smoke from their fire went higher and higher, and Red come down the line.
He shivered and shook with the snow in his face as he waved old number nine.
He followed the ties past the cinder dump 'til he come to the very same spot,
And there he spied the same old 'boes settin' 'round the same stew pot.

Red went to his knees and he hollered, "Please, don't pull that trigger on me!
I did not get my business straight," but he did not get his say.
A gun wheeled out from an overcoat and it played the old one-two,
And Red was dead when the other men set down to eat their stew.