Tom Paxton – Im The Man That Built The Bridges (Guitar)

  E                                     A                E
I cleared the rocks and timber from the wild New England shore,

  E                                B
I labored long and hard to make it grow.

  E                                A            E
I built the first log cabins and I raised a family,

          E                  B                 E
Told King George and all his Redcoats where to go.

[Chorus]    A
    I'm the man that built the bridges.

            E
    I'm the man that laid the track.

            B 
    I'm the man that built this country

            E
    With my shoulders and my back.

            A
    I'm the man that built the power dams,

        E
    And oiled all the cars,

        B
    And I laid down the cornerstone

        E
    For this great land of ours.

        E                                  A             E
I'm the boy that drove the wagons when the people headed west,

       E                                  B
Dug canals and pulled the barges on their way.

  E                                    A               E
I built and ran the factories, cut the timber for your homes,

          E           B                 E
Drove the oxen when I cut and baled the hay.

  E                                A                  E
I built the old sod shanties and I raised the prairie towns,

  E                                 B
I made the railroad run from sea to sea.

  E                              A              E
I raised and drove the cattle to feed a growing land,

        E                B                E
And the mining towns are there because of me.

  E                              A                  E
I stoked the mighty furnaces and rolled the flamin' steel,

  E                     B
I operated oil rigs and wells.

    E                               A                    E
And when the country needed them, I built the planes and tanks,

   E                B              E
To send the tyrants down to fry in Hell.

         E                             A                   E
Well, my face may not be pretty and my clothes are not the best,

          E                              B
And there ain't no bigshots in my family tree,

    E                                   A                 E
But if you're wonderin' who it was that made this country great,

          E               B               E
You don't have to look no further, it was me.