
Lyrics
(American folk song)
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song, (repeat twice)
I’m worried now but I won’t be worried long.
2. I went across the river, and I lay down to sleep.
When I woke up, had shackles on my feet.
3. Twenty-nine links of chain around my leg
And on each link, an initial of my name.
4. I asked the judge “Tell me, what’s gonna be my fine?”
“Twenty-one years on the Rocky Mountain Line.”
5. Twenty-one years to pay my awful crime
Twenty-one years, but I got ninety-nine.
6. The train arrived, sixteen coaches long
The girl I love was on that train and gone.
7. I looked down the track as far as I could see
Little bitty hand was waving after me.
8. If anyone should ask you who composed this song
Tell him it was I, and I sing it all day long.
See also
- Subject: blues
- Harmony: I IV V chords
- Meter: 4
- Rhythm:
- Scale: hexatonic
- Tones: drmslt
- Source: Songs for Pickin’ and Singin’, James F. Leisy, Fawcett Publications, Inc, 1962
YouTube
- PDF of song with chords
- MIDI file
- Listen to the melody

