Guy Drake - Welfare Cadillac

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Well, I've never worked much

In fact, I've been poor all my life

I guess I really own is

Ten kids and a wife



This house is a lived in mine

But it's really a shack

But I always managed somehow

To drive me a brand new Cadillac



Backdoor steps

They done fell plum down

Front screen door's off and laying

Somewhere out there on the ground



Wind just now whupped another piece

Of that old tar roofing off the back

Sure hope it don't skin up that new Cadillac



Front porch?, they're loose at the bottom

It don't make no sense to fix them

Cause that floor just too darn rotten



Wintertime, we sometimes have some snow

That blows in through the cracks

It gets too bad, we just all pile up

Sleep out there in that new Cadillac



I know the place ain't much but

I sure don't pay no rent

I get the check the first of every month

From this here federal government



Every Wednesday, I get commodities

Sometimes, four or five sacks

Pick em up down at the welfare office

Driving that new Cadillac



Some folks say I'm crazy

And I'd even been called a fool

But my kids get free books and

All them there free lunches at school



We get peanut butter and cheese

And, man, they give us flour by the sack

Course, them welfare checks

They make the payments on this new Cadillac



The way that I see it

These other folks are the fools

They're working and paying taxes

Just to send my youngins through school



Salvation Army cuts our hair and

Gives us the clothes we wear on our back

So we can dress up and ride around

And show off this new Cadillac



But things still gonna get better yet

At least that's what I understand

They tell me this new President

Put in a whole new poverty plan



Why, he gonna send us poor folks money

They say we gonna get it out here in stacks

In fact, my wife's already shopping around

For her new Cadillac