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Swordfishtrombone

Tom Waits

Text File

SWORDFISHTROMBONE (Tom Waits)
Album Sworfishtrombones (1983)

                   [Am]          
Well he came home from the war
           [E]
with a party in his head
        [E]                                [Am]
and modified Brougham DeVille
         [Am]
and a pair of legs that opened up
      [E]
like butterfly wings
          [E]                               [Am]
and a mad dog that wouldn't sit still

              [Dm]                     [Am]
he went and took up with a Salvation Army Band girl
           [Dm]                          [Am]
who played dirty water on a swordfishtrombone
                 [Dm]                                   [Am]
he went to sleep at the bottom of Tenkiller lake
                    B                              [E7]
and he said "gee, but it's great to be home."

Well he came home from the war
with a party in his head
and an idea for a fireworks display
and he knew that he'd be ready with
a stainless steel machete
and a half a pint of Ballentine's each day

and he holed up in room above a hardware store
cryin' nothing there but Hollywood tears
and he put a spell on some poor little Crutchfield girl
and stayed like that for 27 years

Well he packed up all his 
expectations he lit out for California
with a flyswatter banjo on his knee
with a lucky tiger in his angel hair
and benzedrine for getting there
they found him in a eucalyptus tree

lieutenant got him a canary bird and shaked her head with every word
and Chesterfielded moonbeams in a song
and he got 20 years for lovin' her from some Oklahoma governor
said everything this Doughboy does is wrong

Now some say he's doing
the obituary mambo
and some say he's hanging on the wall
perhaps this yarn's the only thing
that holds this man together
some say he was never here at all

Some say they saw him down in Birmingham, 
sleeping in a boxcar going by
and if you think that you can tell a bigger tale
I swear to God you'd have to tell a lie...

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Swordfishtrombone

Tom Waits