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They Couldn't Take the Music

G   C


  C
I never really knew you - I was a couple of years too young.
F
By the time I came of age, the song of your life was sung
         G7
From the hills of Oklahoma to the North Atlantic seas,
                                                              C
From the cries of the hungry children to the eyes of the deportees.


           F                                C
They could take away your money, they could take away your land,
          G7                                    C
Drive you out on the endless highway, leave you out on the desert sand.
           F                                        C
They could take the food from your hungry mouth and lock you in the hole,
         G7                                C - G/B - Am
But they couldn't take the music from your soul.
         G7                      G6        C
No, they couldn't take the music from your soul.

Just another scruffy Okie and just a dustbowl refugee
Headin' on out to California, a little bit low on do-re-mi.
And everywhere you wandered, you saw poor folks treated wrong,
And you made those poor folks your whole life and made your life a song.

They could take away your money, they could take away your land,
Drive you out on the endless highway, leave you out on the desert sand.
They could take the food from your hungry mouth and lock you in the hole,
But they couldn't take the music from your soul.
No, they couldn't take the music from your soul.

Oh, they called you a dangerous radical, they called you a rabid red.
But it never really mattered all the stupid things they said.
All those lies and all those liars are all over the hill and gone,
While your songs are still here singing and still rolling the union on.

They could take away your money, they could take away your land,
Drive you out on the endless highway, leave you out on the desert sand.
They could take the food from your hungry mouth and lock you in the hole,
But they couldn't take the music from your soul, Woody Guthrie.
No, they couldn't take the music from your soul.

    G7                             C
And this land was made for you and me.

(Words and music by Tom Paxton, 1981)

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