Johnny Cash Album: Ride This Train Track: Boss Jack
Boss Jack Lyrics
Ride this train to Dyess Arkansas see this cottonland Some of us are so poor now you'd have to sell 'em a sack of fertilizer To raise an umbrella They grade the cotton according to the length and strength of the fibre And they been raisin' a lot of fair to middlin' grade here which ain't good But there was a time Yeah there was a time when the cotton grew tall Not far from here I had the finest plantation you ever saw About 600 acres of the finest cottonland in the country Now I believe this was about 1855 and I had a bumper crop that year I had the best bunch of slaves you ever saw and I treated 'em right Well a lot of em even stayed with me after the war But gettin' back to what I was gonna tell you See I have a rule that all the slaves got to be back in out of the fields And accounted for by sundown every day And one day when they came in there was one short Well I found out right away that it was old uncle Moses that was missin' And figured that somethin' might have happened to him old as he was So I went out into the cottonfield to look for him Well uncle Moses was way down at the end of the road sittin' on his cottonsack Well I walked up and said Uncle Moses don't you know the rule That you're supposed to be punished if you're not back in and accounted for by dark And he said Boss Jack I know that sir But I was pickin' along on my road And all of a sudden somethin' seemed to come over me And the finest words started comin' through my head and the finest music So I rememorized them words and that music till I had it all in my head Now that I got the song all through I guess Boss Jack I was ready to take my punishment Well I didn't hardly know what to say But I asked Uncle Moses to sing that song for me And he stood up there and for the first time he sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot Well after that I kinda laid old Uncle Moses off and let him peddle around the house And every night at dark you could hear him sing And he sang another song once in a while that made me feel awful proud
Pick a lot o'cotton drag a long sack Comin' across the field well I see Boss Jack He's a ridin' straddle of a single foot roan When you know that horse you'll leave him alone
The ole roan's got green in his eyes Mean as the devil and twice as wise A fire in his nose and a bow in his back Can't nobody ride him but Boss Jack
Come on children bend your back Work a little faster fill your sack Then you hitch up the wagon take it to the gin Finish pickin' before the winter sets in [ ac.guitar ] Now here while back when the crop was laid by Remember who took us on a big fish fry Caught a heap of catfish goggle eye and carp Dashed and sang to the guitar and the harp
Well someday old Boss Jack is gonna set us all free Gabriel gonna blow for you and me Angels gonna bring that chariot from above Floppin' there wings like a turtle dove
