| Lyrics: | SHINGLING THE RUM SELLERS ROOF
(D) G C G / G D7 / G C G / G D7 G / Em Bm / Em D7 / G C G
/ G D7 G
One night a poor wretch in a wayside saloon,
Was lingering half drunken
about,
Heard the voice of the rum seller's wife, as she said,
"Go put yonder drunken fool
out."
The rum seller smiling, he made this reply,
In a voice that would brook no
reproof,
"Let him stay if he wants, he is doing no harm,
The fellow is shingling our
roof."
D7 G D7 / D7 G / G C G / D7 G
Are you shingling the rum
seller's roof?
Are you shingling the rum seller's roof?
While your own house
decays are you spending your days
Just shingling the rum seller's roof?
The months
passed by, and he did not return,
The rum seller noted with pain.
So seeking him out with
hospitable air,
He asked his old friend to explain.
"You want me to visit again your
saloon,
And ask why I linger aloof.
With thanks for your kindness, this answer I'll
give,
Because I've been shingling your roof."
CHORUS
All ye who are
shingling the rum seller's roof,
And robbing yourselves and your own,
Remember the winter
of life draweth nigh,
And soon will the summer have flown,
'Twill be no avail in the day
of God's wrath,
To offer high heaven the proof,
That your own house is desolate only
because,
You've shingled the rum seller's roof.
CHORUS
And woe to the man with
the rum seller's heart,
Who covers himself at the cost
Of mankind and womankind, marred
and despoiled,
Whose gain is that others are lost.
On the day when his roof around him
shall fall,
And the weight of his sins bear the proof,
The lost he has ruined shall crush
him and cry,
"We shingled the rum seller's roof."
CHORUS
"The best,
logical argument in defense of sobriety ever published
in song." Maybe so, but it
turns out to be a great drinking
song.
Words by Rev. Robert Whitacker; music,
copyright, and published
by Andrew Lagerquist, Morris, Illinois, 1894.
@drink
sung by
Joe Hickerson on Dull Care
filename[ RUMSELLR
DC
===DOCUMENT BOUNDARY |
