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Texas 19 Tab

by Guy Clark




Song:  Texas 1947
Artist:  Guy Clark

>From the album "Keepers" (track 2), a live album.  I'm probably missing a
lot of the subtleties, but it's a nice, easy way to play it.  Guy makes
the verses build as if a train is approaching and passing you by, but you
gotta hear it to make it work.


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Now bein' six years old
    
I'd seen some trains before,
        
so it's hard to figure out
                     
what I'm at the depot for.



Trains are big and black and smokin' steam,

screamin' at the wheels,

bigger than anything there is,
                           
at least that's the way she feels


           
Trains are big and black and smokin',

louder than July four,
    
but everybody's actin' like
                       
this might be somethin' more...



...than just pickin' up the mail
       
or the soldiers from the war,
        
this is somethin' that even old man Wileman (?)
             
never seen before.

BRIDGE:
         
And it's late afternoon

on a hot Texas day,
                     
somethin' strange is goin' on
                   
and we's all in the way.



Well there's fifty or sixty people
          
they're just sittin' on their cars,
        
and the old men left their dominoes
                           
and they come down from the bars.



Everybody's checkin',
         
old Jack Kittrel(?) checked his watch,
       
and us kids put our ears
                        
to the rails to hear 'em pop.


   
So we already knowed

when they finally said 'train time'
        
you'd a-thought that Jesus Christ himself
                    
was rollin' down the line.



Cuz things got real quiet,

Momma jerked me back,

not before I'd got the chance
                      
to lay a nickel on the track.


CHORUS:


Look out here she comes, she's comin',

Look out there she goes, she's gone,

screamin' straight through Texas
                
like a mad dog cyclone.

Big, red, and silver,

she don't make no smoke,
        
she's a fast-rollin' streamline
                
come to show the folks.

Look out here she comes, she's comin'

Look out there she goes, she's gone,

screamin' straight through Texas
                
like a mad dog cyclone.


...Lord, she never even stopped.


She left fifty or sixty people
      
still sittin' on their cars,
            
and they're wonderin' what it's comin' to
                   
and how it got this far.



Oh but me I got a nickel smashed

flatter than a dime
     
by a mad dog, runaway
                 
red-silver streamline...train


CHORUS:

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CHORDS ONLY, BY VERSE:

V1:

        

V2:

        


V3:
      

V4:
        

Bridge:

      

V5:
        

V6:
        

V7:
      

V8:
        

CHORUS:

        

      

        



V9:
        

V10:

        

CHORUS: