Chip Taylor

I Wasn't Born In Tennessee

Got my four pedal streel player,
Jimmy's got his fiddle makin' like it was his own
world.
Got them city hillbillies an' them green-eyed fillies,
Lookin' up at me like I was Merle.
An' if we can't fool 'em all the time,
It's all right with me.
'Cause it's still my song, ain't nothin' wrong,
An' I wasn't born in Tennessee.
I was seven an' ten years an' hidin' my fears,
Behind the sound of a steel guitar.
Though the city was rockin', we was country,
Sockin' it to 'em at a Mount Burnham bar.
Them city folks, we was doin' our strokes,
And that don't qualify me.
I'll be back again, you remember then,
That I wasn't born in Tennessee.
We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee,
We don't take our trips on LSD.
An' we don't burn our draft cards down on main street,
by golly.
We like livin' right an' bein' free.
I heard old Hag singin' about doin' his thing,
An' I was proud of the things that he'd done.
An' how them San Fran hippies an' them L.A. yippies,
Ain't changin' that Okie none.
But with every show, I see his sideburns grow,
An' there's hair where his face used to be.
An' in a year or so, you may never know,
That I wasn't born in Tennessee.
Pick it, John.
Instrumental break.
I keep pushin' my ballpoint an' doin' a joint,
Tryin' to get these words to rhyme.
An' it'll be my pride if I can hide,
My side of the Mason-Dixon line.
But if that don't play your party,
Honey, it's all right with me,
'Cause I've got my dream waitin' just upstream,
An' I wasn't born in Tennessee.
Here we go:
Got my four pedal streel player,
Jimmy's got his fiddle makin' like it was his own
world.
Got them city hillbillies an' them green-eyed fillies,
Lookin' up at me like I was Merle.
An' if we can't fool 'em all the time,
It's all right with me.
'Cause it's still my song, ain't nothin' wrong,
An' I wasn't born, (Wasn't born.)
On a farm. (On a farm.)
I never knew a horse I didn't wager on.
I wasn't born in Tennessee.