Let Him Go On Mama
John Hartford

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Well, he likes black coffee, fired eggs and a well done T-bone steak
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He likes a red dress and pearly white teeth and the flash of a pretty brown leg
          C                        G
He said, "Back in the thirty's you never had it made"
        A                               D
He's an engineer over on the Ohio river running on the Pittsburgh trade

        G                                    D
With an inspection office in Louisville at a desk for a very short time
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And he played in a band on three different boats working for the Strausburg line
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And long ago he smoked reefer and he even made home brew
        A                               D
And the reefer came in from New Orleans back before World War II

CHORUS
     G                                          D
He's just a feller, worked on the river all his life by a paddle wheel
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You might say he's old fashioned, but that ain't no big deal
      C                           G
Well, it's too thick to navigate, It's too thin to plow
G                  D                             G
So, let him go on, mama - Don't put him down for it now

         G                                         D
Well, he sits and smokes an old eye bolt cigar and says he doesn't miss it at all
D                                                  C              G
But he still goes out and makes a few trips in the summer and the fall
      C                                               G
Well, the railroad trains, the bus and the planes are taking up all the slack
     A                               D
He's been watching those river towns slowly turn their back

     G                                          D
He's just a feller, worked on the river all his life by a paddle wheel
D                                     C                 G
You might say he's old fashioned, but that ain't no big deal
      C                           G
Well, it's too thick to navigate, It's too thin to plow
G                  D                             G
So, let him go on, mama - Don't put him down for it now

         G                                                  D
Well, he comes from a real old time way of life - He had to fight just to learn how
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He might even voted for Nixon once, but I'm sure he sees that now
      C                                    G
Well, Friday nights he makes the best damn gumbo you'd ever want to eat
A                                            D
Saturday morning, before everyone's up, he's gone off down to the fleet

     G                                          D
He's just a feller, worked on the river all his life by a paddle wheel
D                                     C                 G
You might say he's old fashioned, but that ain't no big deal
      C                           G
Well, it's too thick to navigate, It's too thin to plow
G                  D                             G
So, let him go on, mama - Don't put him down for it now

          G                                  D
You're as pretty as he is ugly, and he's the happiest man alive
D                                      C               G
You've got him into believing that old men are back in style
         C                                    G
Now, you see these oysters Bennville and this baked potato skin
  A                                  D
I eat 'em so I can grow up to be and old man just like him

     G                                          D
He's just a feller, worked on the river all his life by a paddle wheel
D                                     C                 G
You might say he's old fashioned, but that ain't no big deal
      C                           G
Well, it's too thick to navigate, It's too thin to plow
G                  D                             G
So, let him go on, mama - Don't put him down for it now
