Masters of Song Fu – Update #8 – The Ballad of Rufus Amos Adams
Your task is to write a country ballad – using a backstory of your own creation – called “The Ballad of Rufus Amos Adams“.
Here’s the song for Round 3 of the Song Fu challenge (you know, the one I was knocked out of at round 1):-
For some background to the song and the additional challenge I set myself, see this post. It does include all the items I mentioned, including a wobbly theremin-pretending-to-be-a-pedal-steel-guitar solo. Having now listened to the other challengers I realise that there was no yodelling, but I don’t know that would sit very well in a ballad, plus it was not in my original list, so too bad.
Here are the lyrics and chords (non-Scottish readers – minor translations included – move your mouse over a word you don’t understand):-
[verse1]
G G C G
I left the farm in the morning, around 6
G G D D
Fed the cattle on the way
G G C G
Headed South for Dallas to pick up my girl
G G D D
And that's when my life went astray.
[verse2 - same chords as v1 except last line]
She was waitressin' in the Korean restaurant
Noodles on poodles she'd serve
When a truck, red 'n' green, with the name of Christine
G D G G
Too fast round the corner did swerve
[verse3]
Gm Gm Cm Cm
What happened just then, I fail to recall
Gm Gm Dsus4 D7
But my world it descended to Hell
Gm Gm Cm Cm
There was kimchi and shitzhu and bodily parts in
Gm Gm Dsus4 D7
The rubble and dust where they fell
[verse4 - same chords as v3 except last line]
I grabbed the truck driver and gave him a kickin'
For killin' my sweetheart so swell
But she wasn't dead - she'd just banged her head
Gm D7 Gm G
And I spent time in the Bar-L
[chorus]
G C
I'm known around here as Amos Adams
G D
Sometimes as Rufus or Hank
G C
I'd consider it lucky if I lived in Kentucky
G D
Instead of a village just West of Buckie
G C
Where the trains are sporadic, money is tight
G D
A bottle of Talisker gets you through the night
G C
I wish to God that my Mama, that sod,
G D G G
Had named me something like Shug.
[verse5 - same as v2]
Let out of prison this Christmas just past
I hoped for a change in my luck
When I got home she wrote, on a tiny wee note
"I've left with the man and his truck"
[instrumental verse - same as v2]
[verse6 - same as v2]
Now I'm only a jakey from a wee Scottish town
But my life's like a Johnny Cash song
My name isn't Sue, but Rufus will do
I guess Nashville is where I belong
~Chorus~
... Had named me something like Tam.
... or named me something like Doug
... or even something like Shug
