Steve Earle sings first verse a cappella, but I provide chords for those of us lacking
confidence in our voices...
Come and gather round me people and a tale to you I ll tell
Of my father and his father in the days before the Spill
With an endless sky above em and a restless sea below
And every blessing flowing from the Gulf of Mexico
Well my Granddad worked the shrimp boats from the time that he was grown
And he scrimped and saved and bought himself a trawler of his own
He was rough and he was ready and he drank when he was home
And he made his family s living on the Gulf of Mexico
Chorus
He was rolling, He was rolling
Cross the deep blue water he was rolling
Well my Daddy drove a crew boat hauling workers to the rigs
He was sick of mending nets and couldn t stand the smell of fish
He drew a steady paycheck 20 years from Texaco
When he died we spread his ashes on the Gulf of Mexico
Chorus
He was rolling, He was rolling
Cross the deep green water he was rolling
As for me I dreamed of nothing any grander than the day
That I stepped out on the drilling floor to earn a roughneck s pay
Then one night I swear I saw the devil crawlin from the hole
And he spilled the guts of hell out in the Gulf of Mexico
Chorus
We were rolling, we were rolling
Cross the blood red water we were rolling
