Chords for David Allan Coe - Personal History [A Live at Billy Bob's Texas Short]

[N] _ [D] _ _ _ _ For me to have gone through [G] all that I went through _ [E] and to [A] come out _
_ [Bm] and achieve [Bb] the [E] success
that I have achieved, [Eb] I think is a [G] remarkable _ _ story.
[D] _ _ In my mind, _ _ [Db]
I've always said, [A] _ I don't know why I couldn't have been on Johnny Carson
[C] just for the mere fact that I spent 20 years in prison, was on death row and got out and
became a singer [D]-songwriter.
_ [Bm] _ _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ I grew up in [G] a [Db] family.
My father was a Mormon.
[Bb] My mother was Pennsylvania [Abm] Dutch Amish.
_ _ It was a lot of strange beliefs.
[Ab] My grandfather used to say, you can't go to heaven if you drink hot liquids. _
You can't go to heaven if you drink hot liquids.
One day I woke up and I said, what the fuck does God care if I drink hot liquids?
That don't even make no sense to me.
_ I'm going to drink coffee.
I want to take a drink.
I want to see what this coffee thing's about.
_ So I started [Db] drinking coffee.
When I [E] was 58 years old, it took me that long [Db] to [Ab] reconcile in my [Bm] mind that God didn't give
[Ab] a fuck if I drank hot liquids. _
But my [B] father was an alcoholic.
My father was [Bb] a guy that _ [C] beat my mother, ran her head through the wall.
Back in the 50s, that was a way of life.
Men beat their wives.
They beat their kids.
I mean, that was just a way of [Db] life.
And I know, [D] you know, [E] I talked to my son about that now, [Eb] and he just [Ab] can't imagine.
Because now [Dbm] if you go to hit, wait, wait a minute, I'll [C] call 911, motherfucker.
[E] You ain't hitting me.
[G] You know what I mean? _
[Cm] When I was nine years old, I was placed in institutions.
[Ab] _ _ _ [G] And _ [C]
for the biggest part of my life from that point on, [Gb] I was in institutions, in [Ab] institutions.
And _ _ _ [F] being [Db] in institutions _ _ _ _ _
[Abm] at [C] that young age, [B] _ _ _
[C] _ I had to _ be very tough.
[B] _ _ _ _ [C] A lot of people were [D] always saying to me, smile.
I said, I don't smile.
[Gm] You know, it ain't what I [B] do.
_ [Db] You know, _ _
_ [B] _ _ _ [Db] I just grew up being [Ab] abused _ _ [B] _
by _ guards, by [Bb] the penal system in general.
[N] _ _ [B] _ _ _
And _ [Ab] the only way that I found _ [B] _ _ [Eb] to keep from losing my mind, _ [Em] because [Db] I had all these other
feelings as a young boy, _ you know, I mean, there's [A] nothing I would have loved better
than to say [B] to the guy in the cell, I mean, hey, man, how about coming down and just sitting beside [A] me?
I just like to feel [Ab] another person's [G] body close to mine.
But if I did [Db] that, all of a sudden, he's going to think, hey, [B] you know, we got [Dbm] something
going on here, [N] _ [Dm] you know, so [Eb] you got to keep those feelings inside [A] of you.
[Db] Okay.
Well, what I did [C]
[B] to release those feelings was I wrote, _ I wrote, you know, _ _ and [C]
I never
let nobody see that side of me.
[G] You know, it was, [Eb] I was the, if you [Db] would have went to the Ohio State Penitentiary _ [C] in
the 1960s, _ [Bb] and when you first [Ab] went into prison, they would have showed you three [Db] guys, three
inmates, they would have [B] showed you our pictures.
I was one of [N] those inmates. _
_ [A] The first day you were there, and they would say to you, look at these three men, [B] _ remember their faces. _ _
If you see them _ _ in this prison, _ do [D] not talk to them. _
[Dm] Do not have anything to do with them.
[D] Stay as far away from them as you can [B] stay, because they will kill you if you look at them [N] wrong. _ _ _ _ _
[E] I was [N] _ considered _ _
_ [Bm] to be [N] one _ of the [B] hardcore _ criminals _ of _ [Bb] the penal system.
_ I had stabbed three [C] or four people, hit people over the head with [Bb] baseball bats, [B] _ took one
guy and shoved his head in a pot of hot chili.
[Bb] I [Ab] mean, I [B] spit on the warden.
[N] _
_ [Bm] I mean, I [D] was an incorrigible, [B] angry [Bbm] young man.
And yet, back at [A] my cell at night, I was [Ab] writing things like, would you lay with me in a field
of stone, and [Bb] great _ [G] _ _ _ [Abm] sentimental _ _ _ _ words [G] _ that later, after I got out of prison, I [B] had five
or six thousand [C] _ things that I'd [Bb] written while I was in [N] prison _ [G] _
_ on [B] paper.
And then I could look at them objectively [Ab] and write about that. _
You know, _ people are always asking me [Gb] _
_ if things would have been different if I hadn't been in prison.
[Ebm] Well, you know, how can [Ab] I answer that?
Because I was in prison, and that's the only thing I know.
_ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bbm] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ [Ab] _ _ _ [Db] _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ _ [Gb] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [Bm] _ _
[Ab] _ _ [B] _ I was in prison.
I was in prison. _ _