Billy Bragg – My Thirty Thousand (Guitar)

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

C
A beersoaked brassy band

G
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

C
Each wrinkle on your face

G
I know it at a glance

G
You cannot run and hide

D
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