Capo 2nd fret

Standard (EADGBE)

Well, the summer day make a white man lazy

Well, all I've ever known is poor

Owe my skin to the country store

Don’t own my walls, my roof, my door

But he tells me I'm free

But I fight the will to live

Hell might take but heaven gives

It's the only one so I'll forgive

And Im not the one to grieve

And the summer day make a white man lazy

He sits on his porch killing time

I gotta work to feed my wife and baby

I work so god damn hard that it's a crime

Well, I went down to the polling place

The white men there just laughed in my face

Saying boy, this ain’t no nigger's race

You best get on your way

Sir, I believe I've got the right

Said you ain’t got nothing if you ain’t white

And I thought I said get out of sight

Well, what was I to say?

And the summer day make a white man lazy

He sits on his porch killing time

I gotta work to feed my wife and baby

I work so god damn hard that it's a crime

When I was 'bout the age of five

Watched my daddy burned alive

They cut him low and they hung him high

Swayin' in the breeze

The last words I heard him say

Before they stole his life that day

Was forgive them lord, they've gone astray

Now take me to my knees

And the summer day make a white man lazy

He sits on his porch killing time

But the summer day make a nigger feel crazy

Might make me do something out of line

Intermezzo:

Well, I don’t know but I heard tell

Of a furnace below a place called hell

And who would catch me if I fell?

Who would pray for me?

But one thing I see for sure

It's hot as hell up here I know

And the devil lives right down the road

It's all the same to me

And the summer day make a white man lazy

He sits on his porch killing time

But the summer day make a nigger feel crazy

Might make me do something out of line

(all in barre chords)

But if you should see my wife

Tell her that I won’t be home tonight

So don’t leave on the light

I got a little business down the road

And If I'm dead by sunrise

Kiss my baby girl for me

It ain’t life if it ain’t free

I got a mighty burden to unload