Guitar Child

Guitar Child
by Tom Chapin
© 2015 The Last Music Co. (ASCAP)

I know the bad-man ballads
Work songs and hollers too
I learned the shouts and break-downs
I’ve lived the highway blues

From Portland East to Portland West
To Chi-town, Illinois
Somewhere in every music man
There is the endless boy

I’m a Guitar Child
That’s the thing
Made of wood and steel and string
Strike a chord
Let it ring
I am a Guitar Child

It was Lomax books and Guthrie
And Pete Seeger that taught me
Huddie Ledbetter’s 12-string
Reverand Gary’s ragtime jubilee
Robert, Chet, and Maybelle,
Big Bill Broonzy showed the way
Here I am still trying to find
Something new to say

I’m a Guitar Child
That’s the thing
Made of wood and steel and string
Strike a chord
Let it ring
I am a Guitar Child

It’s a hard life
For the kids and wife
When they’re the ones to stay
While I’m singing songs about myself
A thousand miles away

I was born into music
It’s become the family thing
Chasing rhyme and melody
And dancing on a string

I’ve been down every interstate
Up every dusty road
Folks like me do not retire
They just reload

I’m a Guitar Child
That’s the thing
Made of wood and steel and string
Strike a chord
Let it ring
I am a Guitar, yes, a Guitar
I am a Guitar Child

This song appears on Tom Chapin's Tom Chapin - 70 CD.

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