James' Blue

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James washed dishes at a barbecue
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 place Fifth Street downtown
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He'd get his pay and go next door
        G
 to drink his money down
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And I was just getting' started 
             G                   C
playing guitar when I met him there
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I'd finish a song he'd clap his 
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hands no one else would but he 
             C
didn't care

He'd yell out play Whiskey River and
 I'd play it as best I could
I'd take a break and he'd say 'man 
you're really sounding good'
I shook his rough dishwashing hands 
as he said his name was James
He'd go back to playing that pool 
every evening the same old thing

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C         F
He was drinking away every single 
dollar
C
I'd play the songs that he'd holler
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He'd clap his hands and make 
            C
everybody smile
C   F
No wife no kids just a job in Austin
C                      F
No telling all that drinking cost 
him
C             G          F
I haven't seen James in awhile
C           G            C
I haven't seen James in awhile


James would ask the bartender for a 
ride home now and then
He said he lived a few blocks down 
at the Capitol Inn
Well the bartender dropped him off 
but James walked right on past
He didn't quit walking 'til he laid 
down beneath a busy underpass

James got drunker that usual and 
ended up in jail
The owner of the barbeque place came
 down and paid his bail
When they got back to the place she 
said now James I gotta let you go
James walked out that door forever 
and the rest nobody knows