VERSE 1: 
                 D5 
Well, I quit my job down at the car wash, 

Left my mama a goodbye note,By sundown I'd left Kingston,  

With my guitar under my coat, 
              G5      G5       
I hitchhiked all the way down to Memphis, 

Got a room at the YMCA, 
         D5 
For the next three weeks I went huntin' them nights, 

Just lookin' for a place to play, 
          A5 
Well, I thought my pickin' would set 'em on fire, 
      G5                            D5   G5   
But nobody wanted to hire a guitar man. 
 
VERSE 2: 
                        D5 
Well, I nearly 'bout starved to death down in Memphis, 

I run outta money and luck, 

So I bummed me a ride down to Macon, Georgia, 

On a overloaded poultry truck, 
            G5    G5  
I thumbed on down to Panama City, 

Started pickin' out some of them all night bars, 
D5 
Hopin' I could make myself a dollar, 

Makin' music on my guitar, 
         A5    
Got the same old story at them all night piers, 
       G5                                     D5      
There ain't no room around here for a guitar man 
 
SPOKEN: We don't need a guitar man, son  
G5 
So I slept in the hobo jungles, 

Roamed a thousand miles of track, 
        D5    
Til I found myself in Mobile Alabama, 

In a club they call Big Jack's, 
         G5  
A little four-piece band was jammin', 

So I took my guitar and I sat in, 
   E5  
I showed 'em what a band would sound like, 
         A5 
With a swingin' little guitar man. 
 
SPOKEN: Show 'em , son 
                    D5 
If you ever take a trip down to the ocean,find yourself down around Mobile, 

Make it on out to a club called Jack's, If you got a little time to kill, 
     G5       G5        
Just follow that crowd of people,You'll wind up out on his dance floor, 
D5 
Diggin' the finest little five-piece group,Up and down the Gulf of Mexico, 
A5                                                G5  
Guess who's leadin' that five-piece band, Well, wouldn't ya know,  
                                  D5  G5 D5 
it's that swingin' little guitar man.