Tom Russell - East Texas Red Chords

[Intro]
C
 
[Verse 1]
 
Down in the scrub oak country
       F                C
To the South East Texas Gulf
C
There used to ride a brakeman
  Dm              G
A brakeman double tough
   C
He worked the town of Kilgore
    F                      C
And Longview, twelve miles down
       F                                       Am
And the travellers all said, little East Texas Red
        G             C
Was the meanest bull around
 
[Verse]
C
If you rode by night or the broad daylight
       F                  C
Or the wintry wind or the sun
C
You could always see little East Texas Red
  Dm                          G
A-sporting his smooth running gun
        C
And the tail got switched down the stems and mains
    F         C
And everybody said
         F                    Am
That the meanest bull on them shiny irons
    G                 C
Was little East Texas Red
 
[Verse]
C
It was on a cold and a windy old night
     F                    C
And along towards nine or ten
C
A couple of boys on the hunt of a job
     Dm                       G
They stood in that blizzardry wind
          C
They were hungry and cold and they knocked on the doors
       F               C
Of the working people around
      F                  Am
For a piece of meat or a carrot or spud
        G              C
Just to boil the stew around
 
[Verse]
C
Well, East Texas Red comes down the line
       F                         C
And he swung off that old Number Two
C
He kicked their bucket over a bush
       Dm                      G
And he dumped out all of their stew
        C
And the travellers said, "Little East Texas Red
           F                 C
You better get your business straight
       F                     Am
'Cause you're gonna ride the little black train
     G               C
Just one year from today"
 
[Verse]
C
Well, Red he laughed and he climbs on the bank
       F                        C
And he swings off the side of a wheeler
C
And the boys caught a tanker to Seminole
     Dm         G
Then west to Amarillo
         C
And they caught 'em a job of oil field work
         F                     C
And they followed the pipeline down
   F                 Am
It took 'em a lot of places before
    G                C
The year had rolled around
 
[Verse]
C
Then on a cold and a windy morning
     F                       C
They caught 'em a Gulf bound train
C
They shivered and shook with the dough in their clothes
       Dm               G
To the scrub oak flats again
           C
With their warm suit of clothes and their overcoats on
     F             C
They walked into a store
     F                     Am
They paid the man for some meat and stuff
   G                  C
To boil the stew once more
 
[Verse]
C
The ties they tracked down that cinder dump
          F                    C
'Til they came to the same old spot
C
Where East Texas Red, just one year ago
    Dm                     G
Had dumped their last stew pot
 
[Verse]
C
Well, the smoke of their fire rose higher and higher
        F                 C
And old Red come down the line
C
With his head down low in the wintry wind
   Dm               G
He waved old Number nine
       C
And he walks on down to the jumble yard
        F                     C
Then he comes to the same old spot
    F                      Am
And there was the same two men again
 G                    C
Around that same stew pot
 
[Verse]
C
Red went to his knees and he hollered, "Please,
          F                    C
Don't you pull your trigger on me
C
I did not get my business straight"
       Dm            G
But he did not get a say
         C
'Cause a gun wheeled out of an overcoat
       F                   C
And it played that old one-two
    F                     Am
And Red was dead when the other two men
    G                 C
Sat down to eat their stew