I'll give you salt for silver,
if you'll only make the trade.
This poetry, these melodies,
are things that I have made.
I've woven them from songs I've heard
from stories I've been told.
I'll give you salt for silver,
unless you offer gold.

I'm gonna build a big machine
a mechanical collage
I’m gonna build it in the workshop
in the back of my garage
it’s gonna be a huge contraption
made of cogs and wheels and gears
and discarded bits of everything
I've gathered through the years.

And when it gets to rolling
It's gonna to make an awesome sound
like thunder in the mountains
Or an earthquake underground.
When I'm done they're gonna ask me
Bob, just what does that thing do.
I'll turn around and ask them
“ Man, well what's it do for you?"

Gonna write a crazy song
Not sure what it's gonna mean.
Might be plain, it might be a puzzle,
might be something in between.
I’ll populate the verses
with people from my dreams.
It all might point to something deep
or maybe just be what it seems.

And when I get to singing it
It's gonna be an awful noise,
But I really can’t be bothered
by the folks my voice annoys.
When it's done they're gonna beg me
Please explain that thing to me
And I'll look at them and tell them
that it's nothing they can't see.

Do I really have to tell you that is just the way I roll?
I'm just a simple farm boy with a complicated soul,
who set out first to following in Woody Guthrie's racks
to sing about the common man and the burdens on their backs.

Gonna write an epic novel,
yes a mountain range of prose.
might turn the tide of history
or turn all my friends to foes.
Gonna be a huge concoction
made of thoughts and words and prayers
though there might be nothing underneath
when you peel away the layers.

But if I fail in that ambition
gonna put away my pen,
put on ordinary clothing
to go walk the world of men.
Gonna look in all their faces
at the stories in their eyes
in the hope that all the misery
I see there makes me wise.

Do I really have to tell you
that that’s just the way I roll.
I'm just simple farm boy
with a complicated soul.

Who set out first to following
in Woody Guthrie’s tracks,
to talk about the common man
and the burdens on their backs.

Who got waylaid in the city
by the beatniks and the clowns
and the grief that always comes to you
from mixing ups and downs.

who tried his hand at Jesus
then he suffered his relapse
And rebuilt his ideas
from all those bits and scraps.