| I’m a porter and a night clerk at the old Hot Rod Hotel
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| I clean and scrub the lobby down and thirty one rooms as well
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| I wax and shine their boots and shoes, I brush down their crinkeldy clothes
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| I meet the buses and the trains and show you to your door
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| Bell bottom pants brought two boys in at six fourteen last night
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| Two girls checked in at ten otwo and I flipped on their light
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| The lamrods wife looks in their doors and finds one terrible sight
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| Those boys and girls got bawled up in their doors and rooms last night
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| A bloody flood could never messed these rooms up any worse
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| It looked like Moe had used this room to grease and breed a horse
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| Old gum and hairs and sticky rags, old bottles on the floors
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| Gobs of spit and condom rubbers on the windows, walls and doors
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| The lammy tried to make me clean up the crappy mess
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| Or else he’d fire me off my job and let me starve to death
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| I laid aside my polish rag and downed my dusting pan
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| And I’ve not seen the old Hot Rod nor that old town since then
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| WORDS: Woody Guthrie (1949) — MUSIC: Billy Bragg (1996)
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| JAY BENNETT: Farfisa organ, mandolin, electric guitar
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| BILLY BRAGG: acoustic guitar, vocals
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| KEN COOMER: drums
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| JOHN STIRRATT: electric bass
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| JEFF TWEEDY: acoustic guitar |