Standard (EADGBE)

How have you been my darling children

 While I have been away in the west

 Thought you are strangers I feel as I know you

 by the way that you treat me and offer to feed me

 and eagerly ask if I’ll stay for a rest

  Now sit yourself down in pile here

me

 I wish I had presents for each of your smiles

 But I have been traveling with not much to carry

 Just a broken guitar case with tape on the side a bag and a few signs to help me

 rides

  But here are the beads from the throat of a princess

 who reigned in the years round two hundred

 Divide them and wear them and make sure to share them

 cause I want you to have them in hopes that you’ll be as lovely as the lady who

 them to me

  And here is strange Euro pean guitar string

 I found on the floor of a club in Marse illes

 It’s fat for the third string and G skinny for the D fourth string

 but I kept in hopes that id use it someday it funny how people just do things that way

  And here is turtle from the Long Island Express way

 He says that his home has been covered with tar

 so I gave him a ride on the back of my suitcase

 and he says that he’d like to stay here in your yard At long last his life won’t

 quite so hard

  How have you been my darling children

 While I have been way in the west

 Thought you are strangers I feel as I know you

  by the way that you treat me and offer to feed me and eagerly ask if I’ll stay

 a rest