Jim Croce – The Wall (Guitar)

C
Well, there's lots of strange men in cell-block ten,

                          G
but the strangest of them all

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was a pal of mine who would spend his time

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just staring at the wall, staring at the wall.

C
In his hand was a note that his gal had wrote,

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which proves that crime don't pay

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the very same gal that h'd robbed and stole for,

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naming her wedding day, naming her wedding day.

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As he looked at the wall so strong and tall,

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I heard him softly curse, "nobody at all

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has ever made that wall, but I'm gonna be the first,

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I'm gonna be the first."

C
Well the Warden walked by, said "Son don't try,

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cause I'd hate to see you fall

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cause there ain't no doubt we're gonna carry you out

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if you ever touch that wall, if you ever touch that wall."

C
But a year has gone by since he made his try;

                 G
I can still recall

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how hard he tried and the way he died,

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but he never topped the wall, he never topped the wall.

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Many a man who has shook this can,

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and I know a man who tried.

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The newspapers called it a jailbreak plan,

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but I know it was suicide; I know that it was suicide.

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Well I know that I shouldn't have done it

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I know it just wasn't right

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Cause they got me backed up to the Cottonmouth river

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and I can't cross late at night.

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Yeah, there's lots of stories told about the Cottonmouth river,

F                        G
 they tell them time and again,

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 about the men who tried to cross that river by moonlight

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 never were heard from again.

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Well if I had my life to live over,

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I'd've gone to work that day

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instead of going into town and shooting him down

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for a thing I never heard him say.

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Yeah, there's lots of stories told about the Cottonmouth river,

F                       G
they tell them time and again,

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about the men who tried to cross that river by moonlight

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never were heard from again.

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Well, I'd just made it through the canebreak

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and got one foot in the mud.

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I can hear the hounds a-bayin' but the snake around my ankle's

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telling me my running days are done.

              G                              C
Yeah, there's lots of stories told about the Cottonmouth river,

F                       G
they tell them time and again,

          C                            G        Am
about the men who tried to cross that river by moonlight

F          G          C
never were heard from again.