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east texas red - arlo guthrie lyrics

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down in the scrub oak timber of the southeast texas gulf
there used to ride a brakeman and a brakeman double-tough
he worked the town of kilgore and longview nine miles down
and us travelers called him east texas red, the meanest bull around

if you rode by night and by broad daylight in the wind and the snow and sun
you’d always see little east texas red sporting his smooth=running gun
well, the tale got switched down the stems and main and everybody said
that the meanest man on the shiny rails was little east texas red

it was early in the morning and along towards nine or ten
when a couple of boys on the hunt of a job stood in the blizzardin’ wind
hungry and cold, they knocked on the doors of the working folks around
for a piece of meat and a spud or two to boil a stew around

red come down the cinder dump and he flagged down number two
he kicked their bucket over a bush and he dumped out all’a their stew
one traveler said, “mister east texas red you better get your business fixed right
’cause you’re gonna ride your little black train just one year from today”

well, red just laughed as he climbed the bank and swung aside of a wheeler
the boys caught a tanker to seminole and westward to amarillo
they struck them a job of oil field work and followed and they followed the pipeline down
it took them lots of places till one year had rolled around

on one cold and winter-y day, they hooked them a gulf-bound train
they shivered and they shook with dough in their clothes to old kilgore again
over hills of sand and hard-froze roads where the cotton wagons roll
out past the town of kilgore and on to old longview

with their warm suits of clothes and their overcoats, they walk into a store
they pay the man for some meat and stuff to boil their stew once more
the walk the ties back to the yard and they come to the same old spot
where east texas red, just one year ago, had dumped their last stew pot

the smoke from their fire went higher and higher and a man come down the line
he ducked his head in the blizzardy wind and waved old number nine
he walked off down the cinder dump, then he come to the same old spot
and there was the same two men again around that same stew pot

red went to his knees and he hollered
please don’t pull that trigger on me
i never did get my business fixed but he did not get his say
a gun wheeled out of an overcoat and it played the old one two
and red laid dead while the other two men set down to eat their stew

- arlo guthrie lyrics

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