Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done lyrics

I'm just a lonesome traveler, The Great Historical Bum.

Highly educated from history I have come.

I built the Rock of Ages, 'twas in the Year of One

That was about the biggest thing that man had ever done.

I worked in the Garden of Eden, that was the year of two,

Joined the apple pickers union, I always paid my due;

I'm the man that signed the contract to raise the rising sun,

That was about the biggest thing that man had ever done.

I was straw boss on the Pyramids, the Tower of Babel, too;

I opened up the ocean let the migrant children through,

I fought a million battles and I never lost a one,

That was about the biggest thing that man had ever done.

I beat the daring Roman, I beat the daring Turk,

Defeated Nero's army with thirty minutes work,

I fought the greatest leaders and I licked them everyone

That was about the biggest thing that man had ever done.

I stopped old Caesar's Romans, and I stopped the Kubla Khan;

I took but half an hour's work to beat the Pharaoh's bands;

I knocked old Kaiser Bill flat, then I dumped the bloody Huns,

That's about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

I was in the Revolution when we set the country free;

Me and a couple of Indians that dumped the Boston tea;

We won the battle at Valley Forge, the battle of Bully Run;

That was about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

Next, we won the slavery war, some other folks and me,

And every slave from sea to sea was all turned loose by me.

I divorced old Madam slavery, and I wed this freedom dame.

That's about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

And then I took to farming on the great midwestern plain,

The dust it blowed a hundred years, but never come a rain'

Well, me and a million other fellas left there on the run

That was about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

I clumb the rocky canyon where the Columbia River rolls,

Seen the salmon leaping the rapids and the falls

The big Grand Coulee Dam in the state of Washington

Is just about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

There's a building in New York that you call the Empire State

I rode the rods to 'Frisco to walk the Golden Gate

I've seen every foot of film that Hollywood has run

But Coulee is the biggest thing that man has ever done.

Three times the size of Boulder or the highest pyramid

Makes the Tower of Babel a plaything for a kid

From the rising of the river to the setting of the sun

The Coulee is the biggest thing that man has ever done.

There was a man across the ocean, I guess you knew him well,

His name was Adolf Hitler, goddam his soul to hell;

We kicked him in the panzers and put him on the run,

That was about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

I'm living with my freedom wife in this big land we built;

It takes all forty eight States for me to spread my quilt.

Our kids are several millions now; they run from sun to sun.

That's about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

I built mines and mills and factories to run for Uncle Sam;

I turned th' ploughs and wheels to feed my soldiers in your lands;

This Nazi job's a tough 'un, it'll take us everyone,

'Cause this is about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

There's warehouse guys and teamsters and guys that skin the cats

Guys that run my steel mill, my furnace and my blast

We'll stop the Axis rattlesnakes and thieves of old Nippon

That will be the biggest thing that man has ever done.

I'd better quit my talking, 'cause I told you all I know,

But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go,

The people are building a peaceful world, and when the job is done

That'll be the biggest thing that man has ever done.

I better quit my talking now; I told you all I know,

But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go,

I'm older than your old folks, and I'm younger than the young,

And I'm about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

• Artist:Woody Guthrie