The Grand Coulee Dam lyrics

Song information

Artist: Woody Guthrie
Album: This Land Is Your Land: The Asch Recordings, Volume 1

Lyrics

Well the world has seven wonders, the travelers always tell:
Some gardens and some towers, I guess you know them well
But the greatest wonder is in uncle sam's fair land
It's that king columbia river and the big grand coulee dam

She heads up the canadian rockies where the rippling waters glide
Comes a-rumbling down the canyon to meet that salty tide
Of the wide pacific ocean where the sun sets in the west
And the big grand coulee country in the land I love the best

In the misty crystal glitter of that wild and windward spray
Men have fought the pounding waters and met a watery grave
She tore their boats to splinters but she gave men dreams to dream
Of the day the coulee dam would cross that wild and wasted stream

Uncle sam took up the challenge in the year of '33
For the farmer and the factory and all of you and me
He said, "roll along columbia. you can ramble to the sea
But river while you're ramblin' you can do some work for me."

Now in washington and oregon you hear the factories hum
Making chrome and making manganese and light aluminum
And there roars a mighty furnace now to fight for uncle sam
Spawned upon the king columbia by the big grand coulee dam