Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Dust
Words by Woody Guthrie, Music by Hans-Eckardt Wenzel
Contact Publisher - Woody Guthrie Publications/BMG Chrysalis

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,
Show me a woman that a man can trust.
Snakes on the desert and fish in the sea,
A rattlesnake mama made a sucker out of me.

O tell me how long must I have to wait?
Can I get you now or must I hesitate?

Bacon to bacon and beans to beans,
I got a cornbread mama in New Orleans.
Turtles in the rivers, alligators in the swamp,
A Louisiana mama keeps a man on the jump.

O tell me how long must I have to wait...

It's beer to beer and ale to ale,
I got a L.A. mama in the Frisco Jail.
Gold in the mountains, copper in the hills,
They caught my gal with a forty gallon still.

O tell me how long must I have to wait...

Ham to ham and eggs to eggs
If I don't get a pension I'll have to beg.
There's a lot of crooked politician men;
It would be all right if it wasn't for them.

O tell me how long must I have to wait...

I tried to get a job all over town;
Seven hundred places they turned me down.
They told me six weeks I could get relief,
But I ain't got a bite to eat.

O tell me how long must I have to wait...


© Copyright Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & matrosenblau
Available on: