Back in nineteen twenty seven
I had a little farm, I called that Heaven.
The prices up and the rain come down
And I hauled my crops all into town,
I got the money
Bought clothes and groceries
Fed the kids and raised a big family.

But the rain quit and the wind got high
A black old dust storm filled the sky.
I traded my farm for a Ford machine
Poured it full of this gasoline
Started rocking and rolling
Deserts and mountains to California.

Way up yonder on a mountain road
Hot motor and a heavy load
Going pretty fast I wasn't even stopping
Bouncing up and down like popcorn popping
I had a breakdown ?
Kind of a nervous bustdown.
The mechanic fellow there charged me five bucks,
Said it was engine trouble.

Way up yonder on a mountain curve
Way up yonder in the piney wood
I gave that rolling Ford a shove
And I coast as far as I could
Commencing rolling
Picking up speed
Come a hairpin turn and...
I didn't make it.

No man alive I'm telling you
That the fiddles and the guitars really flew.
That Ford took off like a flying squirrel
And it flew halfway around the world
Scattered the wives and children
All over the side of that mountain.

Got to California so dad gum broke
Dad gum hungry that I thought I'd choke.
I bummed up a spud or two
And a wife fixed up some 'tater stew.
We poured the kids full of it
Mighty skinny kids
Looked like a tribe of thermometers running around.

No man I swear to you
That was surely mighty thin stew
So damn thin I really mean
You could read a magazine right through it
Look at the pictures, too
Pretty whisky bottles and naked women.
Always have thought and always have figured
That if that damn stew had been just a little bit thinner
Some of these here politicians could have seen through it.