Ramblin' outa the wild West,
Leavin' the towns I love the best.
Thought I'd seen some ups and down,
"Til I come into New York town.
People goin' down to the ground,
Buildings goin' up to the sky.
Wintertime in New York town,
The wind blowin' snow around.
Walk around with nowhere to go,
Somebody could freeze right to the bone.
I froze right to the bone.
New York Times said it was the coldest winter in seventeen years;
I didn't feel so cold then.
I swung on to my old guitar,
Grabbed hold of a subway car,
And after a rocking, reeling, rolling ride,
I landed up on the downtown side;
Greenwich Village.
I walked down there and ended up
In one of them coffee-houses on the block.
Got on the stage to sing and play,
Man there said, "Come back some other day,
You sound like a hillbilly;
We want folk singer here."
Well, I got a harmonica job, begun to play,
Blowin' my lungs out for a dollar a day.
I blowed inside out and upside down.
The man there said he loved m' sound,
He was ravin' about how he loved m' sound;
Dollar a day's worth.
And after weeks and weeks of hangin' around,
I finally got a job in New York town,
In a bigger place, bigger money too,
Even joined the union and paid m' dues.
Now, a very great man once said
That some people rob you with a fountain pen.
It didn't take too long to find out
Just what he was talkin' about.
A lot of people don't have much food on their table,
But they got a lot of forks n' knives,
And they gotta cut somethin'.
So one mornin' when the sun was warm,
I rambled out of New York town.
Pulled my cap down over my eyes
And headed out for the western skies.
So long, New York.
Howdy, East Orange.