East Texas Red chords by Arlo Guthrie, The Dillards
Verse 1
G
Down in the scrub oak timber
C
G
Of southeast Texas gulf
There used to ride a brakeman
A
D
And a brakeman double tough
G
D
G
He worked the town of Kilgore
C
G
And Longview nine miles down
C
G
Us travelers called him East Texas Red
D
G
The meanest bully around
Verse 2
G
If you rode by night or by broad daylight
C
G
In the rain or snow or sun
You'd always see little
East Texas Red
A
D
Sportin' his smooth runnin' gun
G
Well the tale got switched down
the stems and the mains
C
G
And everybody said
C
G
That the toughest dick on that shiny iron
D
G
Was little East Texas Red
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Verse 3
G
It was early in the mornin'
C
G
Along towards nine or ten
When a couple of boys
on the hunt of a job
A
D
Stood in the blizzardy wind
G
Hungry and cold they knocked
on the doors
C
G
Of the workin' folks around
C
G
For a piece of meat or a spud or two
D
G
To boil their stew around
Verse 4
G
D
G
Red come down the cinder dump
C
G
And he waved old number two
He kicked their bucket over a bush
A
D
And he dumped out all of their stew
G
D
G
One traveler said, "Mr. East Texas Red
C
You better get your business
G
fixed right
C
'Cause you're gonna ride
G
your little black train
D
G
Just one year from tonight."
Verse 5
G
Red just laughed as he climbed the bank
C
G
And swung on the side of a wheel
The boys caught a tanker to Seminole
A
D
And a westward to Amarillo
G
D
G
They struck them a job of oilfield work
C
G
And they followed the pipeline down
C
G
And it took them lots of places
D
G
'Til that year had rolled around
Verse 6
G
It was on one cold and wintry day
C
G
They hitched them a Gulf- bound train
They beat their way 'cross
the froze gumbo
A
D
To the scrub oak flats again
G
Over sandy hills and hard
froze roads
C
G
Where the cottony wagons rolled
C
G
On past the town of Kilgore
D
G
And on towards old Longview
Verse 7
G
With their warm suits of clothes
and their overcoats
C
G
They walked into a store
They paid the man for some meat and stuff
A
D
To boil their stew once more
G
The ties they tracked back
to the yards
C
G
'Til they came to the same old spot
C
G
Where East Texas Red just one year ago
D
G
Had dumped their last stew pot
Verse 8
G
The smoke of their fire went
higher and higher
C
G
And a man come down the line
His head ducked low in
the blizzardy wind
A
D
And he waved old number nine
G
Red come down the cinder dump
C
G
'Til they come to the same old spot
C
G
D
G
There was the same two men again
C
D
G
Around that same stew pot
Verse 9
G
Red went to his knees
and he hollered
C
G
"Please don't pull that trigger on me
I never did get my business fixed"
A
D
But Red never got his say
G
D
G
A gun wheeled out of an overcoat
C
G
And it laid the old one too
C
G
And Red lay dead as the other two men
D
G
Sat down to eat their stew
East Texas Red
Arlo Guthrie, The Dillards
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