Ride this train to Roseburg Oregon now there's a town for you
And you talk about rough
You know a lot of places in the country claim Paul Bunyon lived there
But you should have seen Roseburg when me and my daddy'd come there
Everyone of them loggers looked like Paul Bunyon to me
As I was a skinny kid about sixteen
And I was scared to death when we walked into that camp
None of the lumberjacks paid any attention to me at first
But when my pa told the boss that me and him wanted a job
A lot of 'em stopped their work to see what was gonna happen
That big boss walked around me looked me up and down and said
Mister I believe that boy is made out of second growth timber and I guess I was Everybody but me and pa had a big laugh over it
Pa got kinda mad and the boss finally said he might start me out as a high climber
I didn't know what a high climber was boy I sure learned fast
That steel corded rope cut my back and that axe
I thought it was gonna break my arms off but I stuck with it
It wasn't long till I learned that a man's got to be
A lot tougher than the timber he's cuttin'
Finally I could swing that crosscut saw with the best of them