Grandfather’s clock    (intro)

 

(spoken with underlying chords C - G - C - F - C - G - C  :)

 

Way down south, down a long, dusty road, there’s an old ramshackled 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 with spider webs. That was my grandfather’s clock, and this song is the story of that clock.

 

             C                  G                   C                    F   

1. My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf,

               C                 G                  C

    so it stood ninety years on the floor,

               C            G                 C                  F   

    it was taller by half than the old man himself,

                     C                    G                    C

    though it weighed not a pennyweight more.

 

                 C                                       F                       C

    It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born,

                                                            G

    and was always his treasure and pride,

               C               G       C                   F                     C    G     C

    but it stopped  - short - never to go again when the old man died.

 

                    C                G                C                     F   

2. And my grandfather said that of those he could hire,

               C              G               C

    not a servant so faithful he found,

               C            G                C                     F   

    for it wasted no time and it had but one desire

                C                     G               C

    at the close of each week to be wound.

 

                C                                F                     C

    And it kept in its place not a frown upon its face,

                                                        G

    and its hands never hung by its side,

                C               G       C                  F                     C    G     C

    but it stopped  - short - never to go again when the old man died.

 

                 C

    Ninety years without slumbering, tick tock, tick tock,

 

    his life second's numbering, tick tock, tick tock,

                C              G        C                  F                    C     G     C    - D

    but it stopped  - short - never to go again when the old man died.

 

 

 

 

 

                 D              A                     D             G   

3. Well, it rang and alarmed in the still of the night,

            D                   A                       D

    an alarm that for years had been dumb.

                     D                  A              D               G   

    And we knew that his spirit was pluming for flight,

                   D              A                 D

    that his hour for departure had come.

 

                   D                                      G                         D

    Still the clock kept the time with a soft and muffled chime,

                                                A

    as we silently stood by his side,

                D               A       D                  G                    D     A     D

    but it stopped  - short - never to go again when the old man died.

 

      D

    Ninety years without slumbering, tick tock, tick tock,

 

    his life second's numbering, tick tock, tick tock,

                D         A       D                  G                    D     A     D

    it stopped  - short - never to go again when the old man died.

 

(spoken with underlying chords D - A - D - G - D - A - D  :)

And I been thinking that some day I’m going down to my grandfather’s old house, and I will get that old clock, and I will shine it up, and I will haul it up good, and get it fixed up pretty, and it will keep time for me just like it did for my grandfather ....

 

(orig. = capo 1st)    (Johnny Cash)