(The Great Bum)
I'm just a lonesome traveler, The Historical Bum. Highly from history I have come. I built the Rock of Ages, in the Year of One And that was about the biggest that man had ever done.
I worked in the Garden of Eden, that was the of two, Joined the apple pickers union, I always my due; I'm the man that the contract to raise the rising sun, And that was about the biggest thing that man had done.
I was boss on the Pyramids, the Tower of Babel, too; I up the ocean let the migrant children through, I a million battles and I never lost a one, And that was about the thing that man had ever done.
I beat the Roman, I beat the daring Turk, Nero's army with thirty minutes work, I fought the leaders and I licked them everyone And that was about the biggest thing that man had done.
I stopped old Caesar's Romans, and I stopped the Kubla I took but half an hour's work to the Pharaoh's bands; I knocked old Kaiser Bill flat, then I dumped the Huns, And about the biggest thing that man has ever done.
I was in the Revolution when we set the free; Me and a of Indians that dumped the Boston tea; We won the battle at Forge, the battle of Bully Run; And that was about the biggest thing that man has done.
Next, we won the slavery war, some folks and me, And every slave from sea to sea was all turned by me. I divorced old slavery, and I wed this freedom dame. And that's about the biggest thing that man has done.
And then I took to farming on the midwestern plain, The dust it blowed a hundred years, but never a rain' Well, me and a million other fellas there on the run And that was about the thing that man has ever done.
I clumb the canyon where the Columbia River rolls, Seen the salmon the rapids and the falls The big Coulee Dam in the state of Washington Is just the biggest thing that man has ever done.
a building in New York that you call the Empire State I rode the rods to 'Frisco to walk the Golden I've seen every foot of that Hollywood has run But Coulee is the biggest that man has ever done.
Three the size of Boulder or the highest pyramid the Tower of Babel a plaything for a kid From the of the river to the setting of the sun The Coulee is the thing that man has ever done.
was a man across the ocean, I guess you knew him well, His was Adolf Hitler, goddam his soul to hell; We kicked him in the and put him on the run, And that was the biggest thing that man has ever done.
I'm living with my freedom wife in this big we built; It takes all forty eight States for me to my quilt. Our kids are several millions they run from sun to sun. And that's the biggest thing that man has ever done.
I mines and mills and factories to run for Uncle Sam; I turned th' ploughs and wheels to feed my in your lands; This Nazi a tough 'un, it'll take us everyone, 'Cause this is about the biggest thing man has ever done.
There's warehouse guys and teamsters and guys skin the cats Guys that run my mill, my furnace and my blast We'll stop the Axis rattlesnakes and of old Nippon And that will be the biggest that man has ever done.
I'd better my talking, 'cause I told you all I know, But please remember, pardner, you may go, The people are a peaceful world, and when the job is done That'll be the biggest that man has ever done.
I quit my talking now; I told you all I know, But please remember, pardner, you may go, I'm older your old folks, and I'm younger than the young, And I'm about the thing that man has ever done.