Lyrics of Talking hard work

While we are on the subject of hard work
I just wanted to tell you that, "i am a man who likes hard work"
I was born working and i worked my way up by hard work
I aint ever got no where, but i got there by hard work

Work of the hardest kind i been down and i been out
I been disgusted i been busted and i couldnt be trusted
I worked my way up and i worked my way down
I been drunk and i been sober, i been baptized and hijacked

Worked my way in jail and i worked my way outta jail
Woke up a lot of mornins, didnt know where i was at
The hardest work i ever done was, when i was tryin
To get myself a worried woman to help ease my worried mind

Im gonna tell ya just how much work i had to do
To get this woman i was tellin you about, i shook hands
With ninety seven of her kinfolk and her blood relatives
And i done just the same with eighty six people
Who's just her friends and her neighbors

I kissed seventy three babies and put dry pants
On thirty four of em, well as others done this same thing
Well there are a lot of other things just like this
I held one hundred twenty five wild horses
And put saddles and bridles on more than that

Harnessed some of the wildest and craziest teams
In that whole country i rode fourteen loco broncos to a stand still
And i let forty two hound dogs lick me all over seven times
Is bit by hungry dogs and i was chewed all to pieces
By rattlesnakes and water moccasins on two river bottoms

I chopped and carried three hundred fourteen arm loads
Of stove wood, one hundred nine buckets of coal
Carried a gallon of kerosene eighteen miles over the mountains
Got lost, lost a good pair of shoes in a mud hole
And i chopped and weeded forty eight rows of short cotton

Thirteen acres of bad corn, i cut the sticker weeds
Out of eleven back yards, all on account of 'cuz
I wanted to show her that i was a man and i liked to work
I cleaned out nine barn lofts, cranked thirty one cars
All makes and models, pulled three cars out of mud holes
And four or five out of snow drifts

I dug five cisterns of water for some of her friends
Run all kinds of errands, played the fiddle for nine
Church meetins i joined eleven separate denominations
I joined up and signed up with seven best trade unions
I could find, i paid my wages, a, dues six months in advance

I waded forty eight miles of swamps and six big rivers
Walked across two ranges of mountains and crossed
Three deserts, i got the fever, sun stroke, malaria, blue
Moonstruck, skeeter bit, poison ivy and the seven year itch
And the blind staggers, i was give up for less, lost and dead

A couple of times struck by lightning, struck by congress
Struck by friends and kinfolks well as by three cars on highways
A lot of times in peoples hen houses, i been hit and run down
Run over and walked on knocked around, im just sittin here
Now tryin to study up what else i can do to show that women
That i still aint afraid of hard work