Tom Russell Woodrow
When people twist your words, Woodrow, ah, they'll
twist at every whim
It's thugs that run the unions now and use your songs
like hymns
Once, your music danced on women's thighs and the arch
of a hobo's brow- ow
Aw, Mrs. Guthrie look what they done to your brown-eyed
baby now
Oh, the trains leave every morning, some go east and
some go west
And the clacking of the iron is the sound you love the
best
It's the great escape from railroad bulls and the Coney
Island girl s
Aw, Mrs. Guthrie, look what we done to your brown eyed
boy with curls
Chorus:
Sing the truth, scream it loud (2nd time: sing it loud)
Aw, Mrs. Guthrie, look what they done to your brown-
eyed baby now
(2nd time: we done)
All those boxcars full of Chinese junk, the caboose has
been junk piled
And we're all buying g roceries now from men with
crooked smiles
You were a drunken, wild mis ogyneer and your politics
were crude
As you s at home writing nursery rhymes and drawing
women nude
And all those politicians breaths stink bad, be they
left or be they right
And the ones who play with rhetoric are not the ones to
fight
Don't go coming 'round here, Woodrow, they'll stretch
you from a rope
And your corpse won't ever find a bar where a man can
drink and smoke
Repeat Chorus
Instrumental (chorus)
C G C Em
Did you hear the scre en door sl am, Ma, Woodrow' s
gone again
G C G Em
He's writin' obscene letters now, the Feds might bring
him in
C G Em D
But every song he ever wrote is hangin' on the bree ze
C G C D G
With the l aundry in the Guthrie yard full of Hunting
ton's dis ease
C G C Em
So, Woodrow, rest in peace, old pal, there ain't
nothin' for you here
G C G Em
We're in the scrub oak country now, the land of dread
an' fear
C G Em D
And whitey's in the wood pile and the writing's on the
wall
C G C D G
But your ring of truth still echoes down the Greystone
clinic hall
Repeat Chorus
So here's to all outsiders, all the ones who could not
fit
The troubadour, the prisoners, the drunken Ind ian
Ah, the circus freaks, the wounded lovers will make it
through someh ow
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, we are ridin' blind with your brown
eyed baby now
Sing the truth scream it loud
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, look what we done to your brown-eyed
baby now
Sing the truth, scream it l oud
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, look w hat we done to your brown-eyed
baby now
