Words by Woody Guthrie
Music by Billy Bragg and Wilco
From Mermaid Avenue Volume 3


G              
Paul Robeson, he's the man
C
That faced the Ku Klux Klan
G
On hollow grove's golfing ground
               D
His words come sounding


G
And all around him there
C
To jump and clap and cheer
G                D
I sent the best, the best I had
G
My thirty thousand


G
The Klansman leader said
C
That Paul would lose his head
G
When thirty five thousand vets
D
Broke up that concert


G
But less than four thousand came
C
To side with the Klan
G                 D
But around Paul's lonesome oak
G
My thirty thousand


G
A beersoaked brassy band
C
Did snortle round the grounds
G
Four hundred noblest souls
D
Westchester's manhood


G
And they looked exactly like
C
The fleas on a tiger's back
G                D
Lost fish in the waters of
G
My thirty thousand


G
When Paul had sung and gone
C
And the kids and babies home
G
Cops came with guns and clubs
D
And they clubbed and beat 'em


G
Well, I'd hate to be a cop
C
Caught with a bloody stick
G                     D
'Cause you can't bash the brains
G
Out of thirty thousand


G
Each eye you tried to gouge
C
Each skull you tried to crack
G
Has a thousand, thousand friends
D
Around this green grass


G
If you furnish the skull someday
C
I'll pass out the clubs and guns
G                   D
To the billion hands that love
G
My thirty thousand


G
Each wrinkle on your face
C
I know it at a glance
G
You cannot run and hide
G
Nor duck nor dodge them


G
And your carcass and your deeds
C
Will fertilize the seeds
G                    D
Of the men that stood to guard
G
My thirty thousand
G                    D
Of the men that stood to guard
G
My thirty thousand