D      F  D    F  D    F  D
 

[Verse 1]
     
My father laid the trees down
   G                          D
He broke them with his hands
                            G
Last year he died and left me nothing
    D                  G
But this frame I fill

A union card
      F                 D
And a pair of workman's hands


[Verse 2]

And I was brought up in the north of here
   G
In Copper Junction town
            D
Where there ain't no longer
    G
Any copper in the ground
         D
Just the reservation land
G
Empty logging towns

Paper mills 
    F                  D
And drawers of hand me downs


[Verse 3]

               G
In 1964, I was seventeen years old
      D
I got caught up in the draft
  G
I did like I was told
            D
And spent a pair of too long years
G
Too young to be so old
         D
Well, it don't take too much sense 
        G
Just to come in from the cold
D                  G
Guess I never did
                D
I guess I never did


[Verse 4]

Back home it was the bottle
       G
Back to work with my old man
    D
But we didn't get on so good
       G
And it wasn't like we planned
        D
And the last I saw of him
G
So drunk he couldn't stand
                              F  D
And that wagon's rolling empty


[Verse 5]

So I got myself cleaned up
      G
I was married for a while
         D
But that ring just kept on falling off
        G
And sometimes I wonder why
             D
But now it's years ago and faded

From whiskey and from rye
      G                   F  D
And I wonder if it matters


[Instrumental] 

D


[Verse 6] 
 
My father laid the trees down
   G
He broke them with his hands
    D
And now I'm just like him
      G
I got nowhere left to stand
         D
And that wagon's rolling empty

And I've got nothing but the frame I fill
        G
A union card
      F                 D
And a pair of workman's hands