Lyrics Grandfather's Clock - Johnny Cash

Grandfather's Clock

Way down South, down a long dusty road
There’s an old round shackled house that nobody lives in anymore
And if you walk down the hall and look
You’ll see an old grandfather’s clock that don’t run anymore
It’s silent now and it’s covered up with spider webs
That was my grandfather’s clock and this song is a story of that clock
My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf
So it stood ninety years on the floor
It was taller by half than the old man himself
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born
And was always his treasure and pride
And it stopped short, never to go again
When the old man died
My grandfather said that of those he could hire
Not a servant so faithful he found
For it wasted no time and it had but one desire
At the close of the week to be wound
And it kept in its place, not a frown upon its face
And its hands never hung by its side
But it stopped short, never to go again
When the old man died
Ninety years without slumbering, tick, tock, tick, tock
It’s life seconds numbering, tick tock, tick, tock
It stopped short, never to go again
When the old man died
Well, it rang an alarm in the still of the night
An alarm that for years had been dumb
And we knew that his spirit was pluming for flight
That his hour for departure had come
Still the clock kept its time with a soft and muffled chime
As we silently stood by his side
And it stopped short, never to go again
When the old man died
Ninety years without slumbering, tick, tock, tick, tock
It’s life seconds numbering, tick tock, tick, tock
And it stopped short, never to go again
When the old man died
And I’ve been thinking if someday
I’m going down to my grandfather’s old house
And I’m gon' take that old clock and I’m gon' shine it up
And I’m gon' to oil it up good and get it fixed up pretty
And it’ll keep time for me just like it did for my grandfather