Tony Rice – John Wilkes Booth chords

JOHN WILKES BOOTH
(Mary Chapin Carpenter)
Capo 6

G                                CJohn Wilkes Booth was a southern man,
Em                        DBorn of an actor in Maryland,
G                              CBound for fortune on a gas-lit stage,
Em                D     GBound to die at a tender age.

Washington to Baltimore,
He played the bills and he slept with whores,
And he burned inside with a hatred deep
For the man who caused the south to weep.

Young Abe Lincoln wasn't young no more,
Tired old man when he won the war,
And he dreamed at night of his death by the hand
Of a bitter world and a faceless man

C                        D         EmAnd he saw his body in a ghastly dream,
C                         Em      DDraped in black while his widow screamed.
C                        D        EmTwo silver dollars on his eyelids lay.
G            C               D     GAbraham Lincoln has died today.


        C                             D                    EmCHORUS: They said there were five and they said there were ten.
          G                        C          DSome say there was never more than just one man.
C                       D          EmWho would smile to see Mr. Lincoln dead
         G           Em         AmIn the name of God and Dixie,
G                                  Em D GIn the name of God and Dixie Land.

John Wilkes Booth and his band of men
They'd failed before but would try again.
When Good Friday dawned with a fickle sun,
Then Booth declared the day had come.

The word was passed and the guns were brought,
Down to Mary Sarrat's boarding house.
Sealed in a note, Booth named just four,
But the gallows would sway with many more.

CHORUS

John Wilkes Booth went to his grave
With a bullet in his neck and a broken leg,
A patriot and his fantasy
Of redemption, grace, and bravery.

And those who hanged and those who spent
Their lives behind a jailer's fence,
Only Booth could have set them free
From the taint of the conspiracy.

CHORUS

In the name of God and Dixie
In the name of God and Dixie land