Tabbed by: Julius Milani



VERSE 1
       ( G5 )
He was not my father?s brother
                   ( F5 )      ( C5 )
But he wished that he could be
        ( F5 )
Told us kids to call him uncle
             ( D5 )       ( C5 )
And we would be his family
         ( G5 )
He had a wife and kids in Fresno
                     ( F5 )     ( C5 )
The youngest one was twenty-four
         ( F5 )
Dad had brought him into our house
            ( D5 )        ( C5 )
They didn?t want him anymore

VERSE 2
             ( G5 )
He helped us work the family business
                ( F5 )     ( C5 )
Building fences in the sun
            ( F5 )
Worked just like a man of twenty
           ( D5 )          ( C5 )
?Til the working day was done
       ( G5 )
He and Dad would spend their evening
                       ( F5 )     ( C5 )
Sitting in lawn chairs in the yard
              ( F5 )
Where they?d drink a toast to Seagram?s
          ( D5 )             ( C5 )
Seagram?s never went down hard

CHORUS
          ( G5 )
Won?t you wake up Uncle Lloyd
              ( F5 )  ( C5 )
Got a lot of work today
          ( F5 )
We?ll get Don to make the coffee
          ( D5 )                  ( C5 )
Load that truck and be on your way
       ( G5 )
Friday night you can drive to Vegas
                ( F5 )      ( C5 )
Maybe this time you will win
       ( F5 )
Buy a trailer by the river
              ( D5 )          ( C5 )
And you won?t have to work again

VERSE 3
        ( G5 )
He was sleeping in the workroom
                ( F5 )     ( C5 )
With a mattress on the floor
          ( F5 )
When one night I heard him crying
              ( D5 )       ( C5 )
As I passed outside his door
           ( G5 )
He cried, "Rita, girl I love you
                ( F5 )       ( C5 )
Rita, Darling please don?t go
            ( F5 )
I?ve tried hard to make you happy
            ( D5 )         ( C5 )
I?ve done everything I know"

VERSE 4
        ( G5 )
Then I heard the bottle open
                   ( F5 )     ( C5 )
The tipping up and putting down
           ( F5 )
Heard the rustling of the covers
                ( D5 )      ( C5 )
Then he did not make a sound
             ( G5 )
I thought of thirty years of Rita
                 ( F5 )     ( C5 )
Standing sternly by his side
         ( F5 )
All the years of hanging in there
          ( D5 )      ( C5 )
All the emptiness inside

VERSE 6
        ( G5 )
Then I thought of how their children
              ( F5 )     ( C5 )
Have children of their own
          ( F5 )
And how a man at fifty-seven
               ( D5 )  ( C5 )
Winds up living so alone