Saturday, February 7, 2015

Copper Kettle

Here's a good date night:
Let's make illegal moonshine
And cuddle outside.

"Copper Kettle" appeared on Bob Dylan's 1970 album "Self Portrait" with string accompaniment and backup singers doing the "bum-bum-bum" thing at intervals. If you thought that making illegal moonshine in the backwoods with hillbillies were anything other than romantic, think again. Evading the tax man and downing some white lightning with your beau is exactly what the singer proposes that he and his girl do. The song was written by Albert Frank Beddoe, and popularized by Joan Baez. On an album that many people couldn't stand, "Copper Kettle" was regarded as one of the standout tracks.

Instructions for date night:
1. Get kettle, coil
2. Fill with corn mash
3. Lay with me by the juniper in the moonlight
4. Watch the jugs fill
5. Preserve tradition since 1792 of not paying whiskey taxes.
Here are the lyrics, with chords:

G Am7 G Am7 G Am7 G Am7 Get you a copper kettle, get you a copper coil, G Am7 G Am7 C /b Am Fill it with new-made corn mash and never more you'll toil. C G You'll just lay there by the juniper C G while the moon is bright, C /b Am Watch them jugs a-filling C(maj7) G In the pale moonlight. G Am7 G Am7 G Am7 G Am7 Build you a fire with hickory, hickory, ash and oak, G Am7 G Am7 C Don't use no green or rotten wood; they'll get you by the smoke. G C You'll just lay there by the juniper G C while the moon is bright, G C Watch them jugs a-filling G In the pale moonlight. G Am7 G Am7 G Am7 G Am7 My daddy, he made whiskey; my granddaddy, he did too. G Am7 G Am7 ^Am C We ain't paid no whiskey tax since 1792. G C You'll just lay there by the juniper G C while the moon is bright, G C Watch them jugs a-filling G In the pale moonlight. C G In the pale moonlight.



1 comment:

  1. Hello Robert, Join us inside Bob Dylan's Music Box http://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/130/Copper-Kettle and listen to every version of every song composed or performed by Bob Dylan.

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