Go Back, Learn To Use That Thing
Shel Silverstein

Well, when I was a boy,
I played in a band,
The virtuoso of the slide trombone.
I always thought that I possessed
A perfectly golden mellow tone.
But then one night things got tight and
Bottles started flyin' my way...
And when I picked myself up from the ground outside,
I could hear everybody say: They said,

Chorus:
Go back and learn how to use that thing
Or don't come 'round here no more.
Well, you've gotta learn how to make it swing.
You're gettin' to be quite a bore on the floor.
Now you've been practicin' for years.
You still can't make it.
The way you mistreat it,
Say you're liable to break it.
Go home, learn how to use that thing
Or don't you come around here no more.

Well, later on I found myself in the war
To protect your liberty
I was sittin' in a foxhole cold and wet
With a machine gun on my knee
Then a thousand of the enemy come over the hill
But that gun of mine just wouldn't seem to go
And the General In Charge, he sorta sidled up to me
And whispered soft and low -- he said,

Chorus:
Go back and learn how to use that thing
Or don't come 'round here no more.
Well, you've gotta learn how to make it swing.
You're gettin' to be quite a bore in this war.
Now you've been practicin' for years.
You still can't make it.
The way you mistreat it,
Say you're liable to break it.
Go home, learn how to use that thing
Or don't you come around here no more.

Well, when I got outa the stockade,
I went back home and I settled down.
I got myself a house and a wife and kids
And a girl tucked away on the other side of town.
But one day when I went to visit her,
Somebody changed the lock on that front door.
And my clothes was in the street
And down from her window
I could hear her roar -- she said,

Chorus:
Go back and learn how to use that thing
Or don't come 'round here no more.
Well, you've gotta learn how to make it swing.
You're gettin' to be quite a bore what's more...
Now you've been practicin' for years.
You still can't make it.
The way you mistreat it,
Say you're liable to break it.
Go home, learn how to use that thing
Or don't you come around here no more.


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Lyrics by Shel Silverstein

  (Pour Me Another) Tequila Sheila   $100,000 in Pennies   25 Minutes To Go   A Couple More Years   A Front Row Seat To Hear Ole Johnny Sing   A Front Row Seat to Hear Ole Johnny Sing [*]   Acapulco Goldie   Alimoney (Also recorded as "Alimony")   All About You   All The Time In The World   Aphrodisiac   Back Home In Huntsville Again   Beans Taste Fine   Better Not Ask Me   Beware Of Lovers   Bigtime   Blue Eyes   Boa Constrictor   Bottomless Well   Boy Named Sue   Bread Upon The Waters   Bury Me In My Shades   Carry Me, Carrie   Centaur   Changing of the Seasons   Civil War Song   Cloudy Sky   Cornflakes With Sugar And Teardrops   Cover Of The Rolling Stone   Daddy, What If?   Dance To It   Date In Dallas   Daylight Dreamer   Diet Song   Dirty Feet   Drain My Brain   Drop The Bomb   Drunk And Crazy   Everybody Got Some But Me (Rauncy Playboy Version)   Everybody Got Some But Me (Tame Recorded Version)   Father Of A Boy Named Sue   February Snow   First Battalion   Floobie Doobie Doo   Food Blues   Get Away   Get My Rocks Off   Goodnight Little House Plant   Goodnight, Little Houseplant   Gotta Get Rid Of This Band   Greasy Grit Gravy   Grizzly Bear   Hamlet As Told On The Street   Handy Man   Have Another Espresso   Help Me, Mama   Hey Nelly Nelly!   Hey, Lady Godiva   Hoodoo Voodoo Lady   I Call That True Love   I Gave Her Comfort   I Got Stoned and I Missed It   I Hear America Singing   I Never Got To Know Her   I Once Knew A Woman   In The Hills of Shiloh   Inside A Lion   It Does Not Pay To Be Hip   Jaded   Jennifer Johnson and Me   Judy   June 25th At The 4th Of July   Jungle To The Zoo   Just Came Down For The Weekend   Kick It Again   Killed By A Coconut   Kiss It Away   Liberated Lady 1999   Little Green Buttons   Living Legend   Liz   Lullabys, Legends And Lies   Marie Laveaux   Masochistic Baby   Me And Jimmie Rodgers   Mermaid   Michaelangelo   Midnight Sunshine   Modern Talk   Monterey Jack   More Like The Movies   Mountain Mary   My Next Impersonation   Never Be This Young Again   Never Bite A Married Woman On The Thigh   Numbers   Oh, You Engineer   On The Way To The Bottom   Paranoid   Pathetic Way Of Getting Over Me   Paul   Peanut Butter Sandwich   Peanut-Butter Sandwich   Penicillin Penny   Perfect High (Or The Quest For Gimmesome Roy)   Plastic   Polly In A Porny   Put A Little Bit On Me   Put Another Log On The Fire   Quaaludes Again   Queen Of The Silver Dollar   Raquel Welch   Red-Neck Hippie Romance   Rest Awhile   Rings Of Grass   Rock & Roll Hotel   Roland The Roadie And Gertrude The Groupie   Row, Row, Row   Sahra Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garb...   Sausalito Witch   Scum Of The Earth   Show It At The Beach   Sing Me A Rainbow   Sing Us Some Of The Old Songs   Six Days Back At Home   So Good To So Bad   Somebody Stole My Rig   Someone Ate The Baby (Dreadful)   Stacy Brown Got Two   Standing On The Outside Of Your Shelter   Still Gonna Die   Sweetest Of All   Testing The Bomb   That Plane   The Avocado Tree   The Ballad of Lucy Jordan   The Clam   The Danger Of A Stranger   The Devil And Billy Markham   The Diet   The Diet Song   The Father Of The Boy Named Sue   The Giving Tree   The Golden Kiss   The Great Conch Train Robbery   The Great Lakes Song   The Lady With The Torch   The Man Who Got No Sign   The Man Who Turns The Damn Thing Off And On   The Mermaid   The Mermaid Of Ontario   The Monkey And The Elephant   The Peace Proposal   The Perfect Wave   The Radio   The Slitheree-Dee   The Smoke Off   The Ugliest Man in Town   The Unemployment Line   The Winner   The Wonderful Soup Stone   They Held Me Down   Thirteen Tons of Ice Cream   This Guitar Is For Sale   Three-Legged Man   Thumbsucker   Time   Truck Driver, Truck Driver   True Story   True Story [#][*]   Turn On The World   Ugliest Man In Town   Uncle Don   Up On The Mountain   Vanilla   Vegas   Vegematic   Warm And Free   What Have You Dont For Me Lately?   When She Cries   Whiplash Will   Whistlers And Jugglers   With His Mouth Full Of Food   Yellow-Haired Woman   Yes, Mr. Rodgers   Yowzah!

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