Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key

Words: Woody Guthrie (1946)  Music: Billy Bragg (1997)

From Wilco's album " Mermaid Avenue" (1998)

 

Notes from Shawn Morton's site (www.web.net/~smorton/):  "The first two verses of this song come to me on the 9th of September while I was doing KP out in Scott Field, Illinois.  I hummed it over to myself for a couple of months, or seven, and then took a notion today that I would finish it up.  This song made up by Woody Guthrie 3520 Mermaid Avenue, Brooklyn, 24, NY. ? March the Fifth, wife in Town working, Daughter in nursery school, jug dry, temperature warmer. A March wind is marching down along the ocean looking at the wreckage that washed in last night - Woody Guthrie".  "Okfuskee" refers to Okemah, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma.

 

Intro:  [capo 4]  G  C  G

G                                C                              CM9 G

I lived in a place called Okfuskee & I had a little girl in a holler tree.

G                                   C

I said, "Little girl, it's plain to see,

      C                          CM9  G   D                               Em

There ain't nobody that can sing like me, ain't nobody that can sing like me."

 

She said, "It's hard for me to see how one little boy got so ugly."

"Yes, my little girly, that might be,

But, there ain't nobody that can sing like me, ain't nobody that can sing like me.

 

CHORUS:

 C                            G     D                            Em

'Way over yonder in the minor key, 'way over yonder in the minor key,

D                                     Em

There ain't nobody that can sing like me.

 

We walked down by the Buckeye Creek to see the frog eat the goggle-eye bee,

To hear the west wind whistle to the east.

There ain't nobody that can sing like me, ain't nobody that can sing like me.

 

Oh, my little girly, will you let me see 'way over yonder where the wind blows free?

Nobody can see in our holler tree.

And there ain't nobody that can sing like me, ain't nobody that can sing like me.

 

CHORUS:

 

INTRUMENTAL OVER:  C  G  D  Em  D  Em

 

Her mama cut a switch from a cherry tree & laid it on the she and me.

It stung lots worse than a hive of bees.

But, there ain't nobody that can sing like me, ain't nobody that can sing like me.

 

Now, I have walked a long, long ways & I still look back at my tanglewood days.

I've led lots of girls since then to stray,

Saying, "Ain't nobody that can sing like me, ain't nobody that can sing like me."

 

CHORUS:  [2x - repeat last line 2x the second time]

 

OUTRO:  C G [vamp and out]