Woody Guthrie Lyrics

I’m tree top Tom I’m a tree topping man,
I top the tall timber all over this land,
It’s bucking them up and it’s snaking them down,
cause lumber is king in a lumbering town.
I fell the mighty Douglas and tall spar tree,
I buck ‘em and raft ‘em on down to the sea,
It’s ties and rough lumber for the whole world round,
‘cause lumber is king in a lumbering town.

My father before me a logger was he,
He cleared all the forests in Minnesotee;
My grandfather logged it from Maine on down,
And Lumber is King in a lumbering town.
I’m 200 pound, and I’m six foot tall,
At pulling my axe I’m the best of you all;
One swing of my axe and a forest comes down;
‘Cause Lumber is King in a Lumbering Town.

Back in the 20’s I worked every day,
It’s $14 I drawed for my pay;
With women and drinking my sorrows I’d drown,
‘Cause Lumber is King in a Lumbering Town.
The Timber towns boomed in the year ’29;
A billion board feet of the fir and the pine;
In 19 and 30 the mill shut down,
‘Cause Lumber is King in a Lumbering town.

Folks didn’t buy timber for houses or mines,
The railroad was idle and didn’t buy ties;
I was out of a job when the season come ‘round’
‘Cause Lumber is King in a Lumbering town.
I hit up the bosses, but business was slow,
So I hit he skids on the old Skid Row,
I panhandled up and I panhandled down,
‘Cause Lumber is King in a Lumbering town.

Times are better the paper it shows,
Cutting the timber twice fast as it grows;
The Trees will be gone when the years roll ‘round,
‘Cause Lumber is King in a Lumbering town.
Fires and Varmints and insects and pests,
The mechanical feller will cut out the rest,
Old ‘high lead’ logging is on it’s way down,
‘Cause Lumber is King in a Lumbering town.

Folks from the plains, and folks from the east,
Folks from the Dust bowl that’s struck with th’ breeze,
Wanting to work, and no work to be found;
‘Cause Lumber is King in a Lumbering town.
What you gonna do ‘bout these hard working me,
Whole families, and women, and kids pouring in?
Looking for land, and there’s land to be found’
But Lumber is King in a Lumbering town.

There’s metals and min’ral hid out in them hills
There’s aluminum, chrome, and there’s manganese mills;
Factories and shops that whistle and pound,
But Lumber is King in a Lumbering town.
The big trees are falling, and us lumberjacks,
With high power saw, and with double blade axe,
It’s fast diesel cats that’s a bringing her down;
‘Cause Lumber is King in a Lumbering town.

But, think of the day when the land is cut o’er
And what of King Lumber when Timber’s no more?
It’s bright shining ore that you’ll dig in the ground;
‘Cause Lumber’s Just King in a Lumbering town.
Takes a flat thousand years for a big tree to grow,
So I don’t be cutting the next growth or so;
A little too long for me to wait ‘round;
‘Cause Lumber’s Just King in a Lumbering town.

But, where can I go? What’ll I do?
Where ever I went it would be the same, too;
No use in my chasin’ a rainbow around;
‘Cause Lumber’s Just King in a Lumbering town.
I’ll stick in the land that you call the Northwest,
Where Lumber’s still King, but King less and less,
There’s iron and there’s copper and gold in this ground’
And Lumber’s just King in a Lumbering town.

We ain’t go the coal Pennsylvania’s got;
An’ we ain’t got the oil like Texas has got;
But the use of the light metal is just coming ‘round;
And Lumber’s Just King in a Lumbering Town.
When old King Lumber’s asleep in his grave,
The Royal Chinook leap the white ocean wave,
To the great King Columbia’s spawning ground;
‘Cause Lumber’s Just King in a Lumbering town.

And there at the rapids the great logging jams
Will go with the sawdust. Great Powder Dams,
Grand Coulee. Umatilla. Bonneville. Down.
‘Cause Lumber’s just King in a Lumbering town.
To me, an old axeman, I ain’t so surprising;
One King a dying, and another King rising;
I knowed all along that it had to come ‘round;
‘Cause Lumber’s just King in a Lumbering town.

King Lumber might live for 100 years, too,
If when you cut one tree, you stop to plant 2;
But, Boys, if you don’t, he’s on his way down;
‘Cause Lumber’s just King in a Lumbering town.
Uncle Sam needs me, Uncle Sam needs you;
I’ll outwork Paul Bunion and John Henry, too;
I’ll log in the Timber, I’ll mine in the ground;
‘Cause a Working Man’s king in a Working Man’s town.

© Copyright Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. (BMI)

Columbia River Collection Woody Guthrie/Pete Seeger