Jug Band Music

Words & Music:

John Sebastian

VERSE 1:

      C                                                    G7

I was down in Savannah, eatin' cream and bananas, when the heat just made me faint.

G7                                                                             C

I began to get cross-eyed, thought I was lost, I'd begun to see things as they ain't.

C                                                                                D7

As the relatives gathered to see what's the matter, the doctor came to see was I dyin'

C                                                  G7                          C

But the doctor said, "Give him jug band music.  It seems to make him feel just fine."

 

REFRAIN 1:

      G7                                                                    C

I was told a little tale about a skinny-as-a-rail, eight-foot cowboy with a headache.

G7

He was hung up in the desert swattin' rats and tryin' to get

                                          C

A drink of water with his knees a-gettin' mud-caked.

C

And I'll tell you in a sentence how he stumbled in to Memphis,

                                     F

Tennessee, hardly crawlin', lookin' dust-baked.

F

We gave him a little water, a little bit of wine

    C

He opened up his eyes, but they didn't seem to shine.

C                                                   G7                          C

Then the doctor said, "Give him jug band music.  It seems to make him feel just fine."

 

VERSE 2:

So if you ever get sickly, get Sis to run quickly to the dusty closet shelf.

And pull out a washboard, and play a guitar chord and do a little do-it-yourself.

Call on your neighbors to put down their labors & come and play the hardware in time.

'Cause the doctor said, "Give him jug band music, it seems to make him feel just fine."

 

REFRAIN 2:

 

I was floatin' in the ocean greased with suntan lotion when I got wiped out by a beach boy.

He was surfin' when he hit me but jumped off his board to get me

And he dragged me by the armpit like a child's toy.

As we staggered into land with all the waiters eatin' sandwiches

He tried to mooch a towel from the hoi polloi.

He emptied out his eardrums, I emptied out mine & everybody knows that the very last line

Is "the doctor said, 'Give him jug band music.  It seems to make him feel just fine!'"

 

          C                                         G7                          C

Yeah, the doctor said "give him jug band music.  It seems to make him feel just fine"