• Home
  • Music
    • Cincinnati-Inspired Songs
    • Commissioned Music
    • New Songs
    • Songitorials = Song + Editorials
  • Shows
  • Bio
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Press Kit
  • Contact
  • WoodyFest

Jake Speed & The Freddies

  • Home
  • Music
    • Cincinnati-Inspired Songs
    • Commissioned Music
    • New Songs
    • Songitorials = Song + Editorials
  • Shows
  • Bio
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Press Kit
  • Contact
  • WoodyFest
0:00/???
  1. Talkin' Hard Work

From the recording Woody Fest on the Mount

In cart Not available Out of stock
Share

Lyrics

Talkin’ Hard Work (G)
While we’re on the subject of hard work
I just wanted to say that I always was a man to work
I was born working, and I worked my way up by hard work
I ain’t never got nowhere yet, but I got there by hard work
Work of the hardest kind
I been down and I been out
I been disgusted and busted and couldn’t be trusted
I worked my way up and I worked my way down
I’ve been drunk and I’ve been sober
I’ve been baptized and I got hijacked
I’ve been robbed for cash and I’ve been robbed on the credit
I worked my way into jail and I worked my way out of jail
Woke up a lot of mornings, didn’t know where I was at
The hardest work I ever done is when I was trying to get myself a worried woman
To help ease my worried mind
I’m gonna tell you just how much work I had to do to get this woman I was telling you about

I shook hands with 97 of her kinfolks and her blood relatives
And I done the same with 86 people who was just her friends and her neighbors

I kissed 44 old women, and 28 young ones, 56 just sorta middle-aged ones

I kissed 73 babies and I put dry pants on 34 of them, as well as others

I held 125 wild horses, I put saddles and bridles on more than that
Harnessed some of the craziness and the wildest teams in that whole country

I rode 14 loco broncos to a standstill
And I let 42 hound dogs lick me all over

7 times I was bit by hungry dogs
I was chewed all to pieces twice by watermoccosins, rattlesnakes, on two river-bottoms

I chopped & I carried 314 armloads of stove wood
109 buckets of coal
carried a gallon of kerosene 18 miles over the mountains
got lost, lost a good pair of shoes in a mud hole

then I chopped and I weeded 48 rows of short cotton
13 acres of bad corn
I cut the sticker-weeds out of 11 backyards
All on account of cuz I wanted to show her I was a man & liked to work

I cleaned out 9 barnlofts
Cranked 31 cars, all makes and models
Pulled 3 cars out of mud holes, and 4 or 5 out of snow drifts

I dug 5 cisterns of water for some of her friends
Run all kinds of errands

Played the fiddle for 9 church meetings
I joined 11 separate denominations

I signed up with 7 of the best trade unions I could find
Paid my dues 6 months in advance

I waded 48 miles of swamps and 6 big rivers
Walked across 2 ranges of mountains, crossed 3 deserts

I got the fever, sun-stroke, malaria, flu, moon-struck, skeeter-bit, poison ivy, 7 year itch, and the blind staggers

I was give up for lost and dead a couple of times
Struck by lightning, struck by congress, struck by friends and kinfolks
As well as by 3 cars on highways and a lot of times peoples in-houses

I been hit and run down, run over and walked on, knocked around
I’m just sitting here now trying to study up what else I can do to show that woman I still ain’t afraid of hard work

  • Log out