Chords for GUY CLARK Texas 1947 / Let him Roll (1975)

_ _ _ _ _ _ [Abm] _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ [F] Being [Cm] six years old, I [Ab] had seen some trains before, [Gb] so it's [Ab] hard to figure out what I'm at the depot for.
Trains are big and black and smoking, _ steam's [Fm] screaming at the wheels.
_ _ _ Bigger than anything is, at least that's the way she feels.
[C] Trains are big and black and smoking, _ louder than July 4.
_ [Bb] But _ everybody's acting [D] like this [Em] might be [F] something more than just picking up the mail.
[Ab] Are the [Fm] soldiers from the war?
[Gm] This something that even old man [C] Wyman never [E] seen [F]
before.
[Gm] And it's a late afternoon _ on a hot Texas day, and something strange is going [C] on, and we is all in [F] the way.
_ [Bb] _ _ [F] Now there's 50 or 60 people _ [Fm] just sitting on the cars, and the old men left their _ [C] dominoes and come [E] down [F] from the bars.
_ _ And everybody's checking, old Jack Kittrell check his watch, and us kids put [Bb] our ears [C] to the rails to hear [F] them pop.
[C] So we already know that _ when they finally said train time, [Bb] and you'd have thought that Jesus Christ [C] himself was [Em] rolling [F] down the line.
Cause things got real quiet, _ mama jerked me back, _ [Bb] but not [F] before I got the chance [C] to lay a nickel [F] on the track.
Look out, here she comes, she's coming, [Bb] look out, there she goes, she's [C] gone.
Screaming straight through Texas [Bb] like a mad dog [F] _ cyclone.
Big [C] and red and silver, _ she don't make no smoke.
[Bb] She's a fast rolling stream, lying [C]
from the shoulder [F] to the boat.
I said look out, here she comes, she's coming, [Bb] look out, there she goes, she's [C] gone.
Screaming straight through Texas like [Gm] a mad dog [F] _ cyclone.
[C] _ _ _
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_ [Bbm] _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ [F] _ Lord, she never even stopped, _ _ _ _ _ but she left 50 or 60 people _ [Fm] still sitting on the cars, _ [Bb] wondering what it's coming to.
I've [C] got this [F] far, but me I got a nickel [Fm] smashed flatter than a dime, _ [Gm] by a mad dog [C] runaway red silver [F] streamline train.
Look out, here she comes, she's coming, [Bb]
look out, there she goes, she's [C] gone.
Screaming straight through Texas [Gm] like a mad dog [F] _
cyclone.
[C] Big and red and silver, _ she don't make no smoke.
She's a [Bb] fast rolling _ [C] streamline from [F] shoulder to boat.
I said look out, here she comes, she's [Bb] coming, look out, there she goes, she's gone.
[C] Screaming straight through Texas like a [Gm] mad [F] dog cyclone.
Look out, here she comes, she's coming, [Bb] look out, there she goes, she's gone.
[C] Screaming straight through Texas [Bb] like a mad [F] dog cyclone.
Look out, here she comes, she's coming, [Bb] look out, there she goes, she's [C] gone.
Now _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [F] _ _
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he's a wino, tried and [Ab] true, [Gb]
done about everything there is to do.
[Ab] He worked on freighters, he worked in bars, [Gb] he worked on [Db] farms, he worked on cars. _
_ There was white port that put that look in his eye, [Gb] that grown men get when they need to cry.
_ [Ab] We sat down on a curb to rest, [Ebm] his head just fell [Db] down on his chest.
_ _ _ He says every single day it gets [Gb] just a little bit harder to handle.
And yet, _ _ _
[Db] _ [Ab] he lost the thread and his mind got [Gb] cluttered and the words just [Db] rolled off down the _ gutter.
_ He was an elevator man in a cheap [Ab] hotel.
[Gb] In exchange for the rent on a one room [Ab] cell, these old years beyond his [Eb] time.
No [Gb]
thanks to the [Db] world and the white port wine. _
_ _ So he says, son, he always called me son, he said [Gb] [Eb] life for you had [Gb] just begun.
[Ab] And then he told me the story that I had heard before, how [Gb] he fell in love [Db] with a Dallas whore.
_ _ _ _ Well he could cut through the years to the very night, [Gb] but it [Db] ended [Gb] in a whorehouse fight.
[Ab] And she turned his last proposal down [Gb] in favor of [Db] being a girl of about ten. _
Now it's been seventeen years right in line, [Gb] he ain't been straight none of the [Eb] time.
_ [Ab] It's too many days of fighting the weather, _ _ [Gb] too many [Db] nights of not being together. _ _ _ _ _ _
So he died.
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[Ab] And when they went [Db] through his personal [Ab] effects, [Gb] in among the stubs from the welfare [Ab] checks was a crumbling picture of a girl and a door.
[Gb] And a dress and [Db] Dallas and nothing more. _ _ _
_ The welfare people provided the [Ab] priest.
_ [Gb] A couple from the mission down the street [Abm] sang Amazing Grace.
No one [Gb] cried except some lady in black [Db] way off to the side.
_ _ We all left and she's standing there [Gb] in a black veil covering her silver [Abm] hair.
An old one eyed John said her name was Alice.
[Gb] _
She used to [Db] be a whore in Dallas. _
[C] So let [Db] him _ roll. _ _
_ _ [Ebm] _ _ [Bbm] Lord [Ebm] let him [Eb] roll.
_ [Ab] _ _ Daddy's gone to Dallas, [Db] rest his soul.
_ [Ab] _
Just let [Db] him roll. _ _
_ _ _ [Gb] _ Lord let him roll.
_ _ [Ab] They always said that heaven _ [Ebm] was just a [Db] Dallas whore.
Let him _ roll. _ _
_ _ [Gb] _ _ Lord let him roll.
_ _ [Ab] _ _ Daddy's gone to Dallas, _ [Db] rest his soul. _ _ _ _
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