Way down in Chatham county round the middle of July
The tassels are emerging and the silk ears still are shy
Phones start ringing, the old school bus gets new oil
Alarms are set and lunches packed and lazy mornings spoiled
And the kids who want to raise a buck for school or car or smokes
They gather front of Ridgetown High when day is barely broke
To work the crops no man or cow or pig will have as feed
But if the crossing's careful there'll be perfect hybrid seed

    Where you can't see where you come from, or how far left to go

    There's nothing in the world but one dense and endless row

    No rust and no smut here, no bugs and no weeds

    Just the corn and corn and corn and corn of Pioneer Seeds.

You start off in a garbage bag with holes for arms and head
The dew it soaks you anyway till sun is overhead
As day goes on you layer down and tie your hair back tight
While on your boots the clinging mud adds inches to your height
The cornfield is a jungle thick enough to drive you nuts
The corn slaps at your eyes and gives you tiny paper cuts
And it does no good to raise your hands and clear the path ahead
Just walk straight on until your face is lashed and rashed and red

    Chorus

From other rows you sometimes hear a laugh or crunch or shout
But you don't see no one 'less they come to boost or bail you out
And when you wanna take a leak, you find a finished row
You chew the ends of tassels if you're hungry as you go
You grab a swig of water every time the chance comes round
You hope for breaks and pray for lunch and dream of sitting down
And the boss he gives us water and he gives the slackers grief
And he gives the lunchtime lecture, "This a tassel, that a leaf"

    Chorus

The rows are long, the fields wide, the tassels hard to find
And if you miss one you can bet the checker's right behind
The season's running out and the silk will soon be seen
You gotta keep on pulling till we get the fields clean
So filthy when you get home after ten, eleven hours
You strip right there inside your door and tiptoe to the showers
You guess how much you've earned so far, you try to count the days
Make it through a hundred hours, you get a dollar raise

    Chorus

Chords: (4/4)

     E

Way down in Chatham county round the middle of July

     A
The tassels are emerging and the silk ears still are shy

  E
Phones start ringing, the old school bus gets new oil

  A
Alarms are set and lunches packed and lazy mornings spoiled

        B7
And the kids who want to raise a buck for school or car or smokes

      E
They gather front of Ridgetown High when day is barely broke

    B7
To work the crops no man or cow or pig will have as feed

    E                                      E7
But if the crossing's careful there'll be perfect hybrid seed

           A

Where you can't see where you come from, or how far left to go

         E

There's nothing in the world but one dense and endless row

    B7

No rust and no smut here, no bugs and no weeds

          E                                  B7      E

Just the corn and corn and corn and corn of Pioneer Seeds.

Turnaround:

E      E      A      A

B7     A7     E      B7