Posted on 01/04/2016 4:02:24 AM PST by Fai Mao
I've liked this guy since I was a kid
I get “This video is not available” with a Sorry about that and a frowny face
I used to work with an old black redneck who absolutely loved Johnny Cash.
You haven’t lived until you pull into the drive of an old black coworker to find he and his wife singing “Jackson”.
It worked for me is all I know
Worked with a black fella who always wore black. I knew the answer but at a company picnic I asked him if he was a Johnny Cash fan as he always wore black. His answer? “I walk the line”
I also “This video is not available”
Here’s an alternative link...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=johnny+cash&lclk=long&filters=long
Well,my daddy left home when I was three
And he didn’t leave much to ma and me
Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze
Now, I don’t blame him cause he run and hid
But the meanest thing that he ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me Sue
Well, he must o’ thought that is quite a joke
And it got a lot of laughs from a’ lots of folk
It seems I had to fight my whole life through
Some gal would giggle and I’d get red
And some guy’d laugh and I’d bust his head,
I tell ya, life ain’t easy for a boy named Sue
Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean
My fist got hard and my wits got keen
I’d roam from town to town to hide my shame
But I made a vow to the moon and stars
That I’d search the honky-tonks and bars
And kill that man who gave me that awful name
Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July
And I just hit town and my throat was dry
I thought I’d stop and have myself a brew
At an old saloon on a street of mud
There at a table, dealing stud
Sat the dirty, mangy dog that named me Sue
Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad
From a worn-out picture that my mother’d had
And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye
He was big and bent and gray and old
And I looked at him and my blood ran cold
And I said, “My name is Sue, how do you do
Now you’re gonna die”
(yeah, that’s what I told him)
Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes
And he went down, but to my surprise
He come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear
But I busted a chair right across his teeth
And we crashed through the wall and into the street
Kicking and a’ gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer
I tell ya, I’ve fought tougher men
But I really can’t remember when
He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile
I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss
He went for his gun and I pulled mine first
He stood there lookin’ at me and I saw him smile
And he said, “Son, this world is rough
And if a man’s gonna make it, he’s gotta be tough
And I knew I wouldn’t be there to help ya along
So I give ya that name and I said goodbye
I knew you’d have to get tough or die
And it’s the name that helped to make you strong”
He said, “Now you just fought one hell of a fight
And I know you hate me, and you got the right
To kill me now, and I wouldn’t blame you if you do
But ya ought to thank me, before I die
For the gravel in ya guts and the spit in ya eye
‘Cause I’m the son-of-a-bitch that named you Sue”
Well what could I do? What could I do?
I got all choked up and I threw down my gun
And I called him my paw, and he called me his son
And I came away with a different point of view
And I think about him, now and then
Every time I try and every time I win
And if I ever have a son, I think I’m gonna name him..
Bill or George! Any-damn-thing but Sue!
Charlie and his wife were very southern and rabidly hated by the other blacks who hung around our shop. (they weren’t really co-workers because they didn’t really do much of anything)
Charlies said they don’t like me because I speak english, they don’t like me because I better myself and they don’t like me because I don’t care that they don’t like me.
Well, I left Kentucky back in forty nine
An’ went to Detroit workin’ on a ‘sembly line
The first year they had me puttin’ wheels on Cadillacs
Every day I’d watch them beauties roll by
And sometimes I’d hang my head and cry
‘Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black.
One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I’d sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand
Now gettin’ caught meant gettin’ fired
But I figured I’d have it all by the time I retired
I’d have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.
I’d get it one piece at a time
And it wouldn’t cost me a dime
You’ll know it’s me when I come through your town
I’m gonna ride around in style
I’m gonna drive everybody wild
‘Cause I’ll have the only one there is around.
So the very next day when I punched in
With my big lunchbox and with help from my friends
I left that day with a lunch box full of gears
I’ve never considered myself a thief
But GM wouldn’t miss just one little piece
Especially if I strung it out over several years.
The first day I got me a fuel pump
And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk
Then I got me a transmission and all the chrome
The little things I could get in my big lunchbox
Like nuts, an’ bolts, and all four shocks
But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy’s mobile home.
Now, up to now my plan went all right
‘Til we tried to put it all together one night
And that’s when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.
The transmission was a fifty three
And the motor turned out to be a seventy three
And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.
So we drilled it out so that it would fit
And with a little bit of help with an adapter kit
We had that engine runnin’ just like a song
Now the headlight’ was another sight
We had two on the left and one on the right
But when we pulled out the switch all three of ‘em come on.
The back end looked kinda funny too
But we put it together and when we got through
Well, that’s when we noticed that we only had one tail-fin
About that time my wife walked out
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts
But she opened the door and said “Honey, take me for a spin.”
So we drove up town just to get the tags
And I headed her right on down main drag
I could hear everybody laughin’ for blocks around
But up there at the court house they didn’t laugh
‘Cause to type it up it took the whole staff
And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds.
I got it one piece at a time
And it wouldn’t cost me a dime
You’ll know it’s me when I come through your town
I’m gonna ride around in style
I’m gonna drive everybody wild
‘Cause I’ll have the only one there is around.
Ugh! Yeah, RED RYDER
This is the COTTON MOUTH
In the PSYCHO-BILLY CADILLAC Come on
Huh, This is the COTTON MOUTH
And negatory on the cost of this mow-chine there RED RYDER
You might say I went right up to the factory
And picked it up, it’s cheaper that way
Ugh!, what model is it?
Well, It’s a ‘49, ‘50, ‘51, ‘52, ‘53, ‘54, ‘55, ‘56
‘57, ‘58’ 59’ automobile
It’s a ‘60, ‘61, ‘62, ‘63, ‘64, ‘65, ‘66, ‘67
‘68, ‘69, ‘70 automobile.
Call him drunken Ira Hayes,
He won’t answer anymore,
Not the whiskey drinking Indian,
Or the marine that went to war.
Gather ‘round me people,
There’s a story I would tell,
‘Bout a brave young Indian,
You should remember well.
From the land of the Pima Indian,
A proud and noble band,
Who farmed the Phoenix Valley,
In Arizona land.
Down the ditches a thousand years,
The waters grew Ira’s peoples’ crops,
‘Til the white man stole their water rights,
And the sparkling water stopped.
Now, Ira’s folks were hungry,
And their land grew crops of weeds,
When war came, Ira volunteered,
And forgot the white man’s greed.
Call him drunken Ira Hayes,
He won’t answer anymore,
Not the whiskey drinking Indian,
Or the marine that went to war.
There they battled up Iwo Jima hill,
Two hundred and fifty men,
But only twenty-seven lived,
To walk back down again.
And when the fight was over,
And Old Glory raised,
Among the men who held it high,
Was the Indian, Ira Hayes.
Call him drunken Ira Hayes,
He won’t answer anymore,
Not the whiskey drinking Indian,
Or the marine that went to war.
Ira Hayes returned a hero,
Celebrated through the land,
He was wined and speeched and honored,
Everybody shook his hand,
But he was just a Pima Indian,
No water, no home, no chance,
At home nobody cared what Ira’d done,
And when did the Indians dance.
Call him drunken Ira Hayes,
He won’t answer anymore,
Not the whiskey drinking Indian,
Or the marine that went to war.
Then Ira started drinking hard,
Jail was often his home,
They let him raise the flag and lower it
Like you’d throw a dog a bone.
He died drunk early one morning,
Alone in the land he fought to save,
Two inches of water and a lonely ditch,
Was a grave for Ira Hayes.
Call him drunken Ira Hayes,
He won’t answer anymore,
Not the whiskey drinking Indian,
Or the marine that went to war.
Yeah, call him drunken Ira Hayes,
But his land is just as dry,
And his ghost is lying thirsty,
In the ditch where Ira died.
Thanks for the help
Part of what made Johnny Cash so great was not just the songs he wrote that became classics, but the fact that so often when he recorded someone elses song his version became the classic.
Elvis was the same way.
There was a time when Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson were the go to guys for songwriting that was made famous by others.
Cash fan since the 1960s.
If they sounded anywhere near as good as Johnny and June then that was a treat.
They weren’t bad.
It was a real treat seeing Charlie pull up at work in his big ole Cadillac convertible with Folsom Prison blues going full tilt and watching the ghetto trash scatter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBZcAQmUxdc
Same.
I wanted to blast out “When the Man Comes Around” on my computer..... Thanks. :0)
Part of what made Johnny Cash so great was not just the songs he wrote that became classics, but the fact that so often when he recorded someone else's song his version became the classic.Hurt
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