Another New-ish Lyric

World Don't Owe Me Nothin'
(for Honeyboy Edwards)

Chorus: (Repeated after every verse)
Well, this old world don't owe me nothin'
Of its treasures or its treats
I done emptied out the stuffin'
I done swallowed all the sweets
Best believe that I ain't bluffin'
When you're thumbin' through my book
Coz this old world don't owe me nothin'
That I ain't already took

I was born in Mississippi
'Twixt the river and East hills
With the cotton, corn, and whiskey
From them old white liquor stills
'Till the flood of twenty-seven
Tore the levee land apart
Took my mama's unborn baby
Overflowed and choked her heart

Lord, they love to get the young'uns
Squirmin' on the mourner's bench
While the preacher shout damnation
'Till you smell that sulfur stench
Preachers, they ain't good for nothin'
Like musicians, only worse
They just eat up all your chicken
And make eyes at all the girls

Papa was a poor sharecropper
Can't make proper when you're black
Share the harvest with the bossman
But he don't share nothin' back
You can starve yourself all summer
'Till the harvest cut and sold
Boss say, "Pretty good, ol' darkey.
You just two hundred dollars in the hole!"

Mama used to play the guitar
Lay it down across her knee
With a blade between her fingers
She could slide on Par-a-lee
I got mine from Sears and Robuck
And I kept it in my hands
'Till the blues become my good luck
And I seen the Promised Land

Now, I done played with Big Joe Williams
And I played with Sleepy John
Even played with Robert Johnson
All them cats long dead and gone
And I had my share of women
Two or three girls at a time
And I drunk a Mississippi's
Worth of liquor, beer, and wine

When I'm dead and six foot under
I won't need no marble throne
Tell that rich man over yonder
I got wealth he's never known
Music, family, fun, and lovin'
Life is like a table spread
No this old world don't owe me nothin'
Cash my chips in, Great Lordy Lord, I'm dead!