The Winner
Shel Silverstein

The hulk of a man with a beer in his hand looked like a drunk old fool,
And I knew that if I hit him right, I could knock him off that stool.
But everybody said, Watch out -- that's Tiger Man McCool.
He's had a whole lot of fights, and he always come out the winner.
Yeah, he's a winner.

But I'd had myself about five too many, and I walked up tall and proud,
I faced his back and I faced the fact that he'd never stooped or bowed.
I said, Tiger Man, you're a pussycat, and a hush fell on the crowd,
I said, Let's you and me go outside and see who's the winner

Well, he gripped the bar with one big hairy hand and he braced against the wall,
He slowly looked up from his beer -- my God, that man was tall.
He said, Boy, I see you're a scrapper, so just before you fall,
I'm gonna tell you just a little what a means to be a winner.

He said, You see these bright white smilin' teeth, you know they ain't my own.
Mine rolled away like Chiclets down a street in San Antone.
But I left that person cursin', nursin' seven broken bones.
And he only broke three of mine, and that make me a winner.

He said, Behind his grin, I got a steel pin that holds my jaw in place.
A trophy of my most successful motorcycle race.
And every mornin' when I wake and touch this scar across my face,
It reminds me of all I got by bein' a winner.

Now my broken back was the dyin' act of handsome Harry Clay
That sticky Cincinnatti night I stole his wife away.
But that woman, she gets uglier and meaner every day.
But I got her, boy, and that's what makes me a winner.

You gotta speak loud when you challenge me, son, 'cause it's hard for me to hear
With this twisted neck and these migraine pains and this cauliflower ear.
'N' if it weren't for this glass eye of mine, I'd shed a happy tear
To think of all you'll get by bein' a winner.

I got arthuritic elbows, boy, I got dislocated knees,
From pickin' fights with thunderstorms and chargin' into trees.
And my nose been broke so often I might lose it if I sneeze.
And, son, you say you still wanna be a winner?

My spine is short three vertebrae and my hip is screwed together.
My ankles warn me every time there'll be a change in weather.
Guess I kicked too many asses, and when the kicks all get together,
They sure can slow you down when you're a winner.

My knuckles are so swollen I can hardly make a fist.
Who would have thought old Charlie had a blade taped to his wrist?
And my blind eye's where he cut me, and my good eye's where he missed.
Yeah, you lose a couple of things when you're a winner.

My head is just a bunch of clumps and lumps and bumps and scars
From chargin' broken bottles and buttin' crowded bars.
And this hernia -- well, it only proves a man can't lift a car.
But you're expected to do it all when you're a winner.

Got a steel plate inside my skull, underneath this store-bought hair.
My pelvis is aluminum from takin' ladies' dares.
And if you had a magnet, son, you could lift me off my chair.
I'm a man of steel, but I'm rustin' -- what a winner.

I got a perforated ulcer, I got strictures and incisions.
My prostate's barely holdin' up from those all-night collisions.
And I'll have to fight two of you because of my double vision.
You're lookin' sick, son -- that ain't right for a winner.

Winnin' that last stock-car rce cost me my favorite toes.
Winnin' that factory foreman's job, it browned and broke my nose.
And these hemorrhoids come from winnin' all them goddamn rodeos.
Sometimes it's a pain in the butt to be a winner.

In the war, I got the Purple Heart, that's why my nerves are gone.
And I ruined my liver in drinkin' contests, which I always won.
And I should be retired now, rockin' on my lawn,
But you losers keep comin' on -- makin' me a winner.

When I walk, you can hear my pelvis rattle, creak and crack
From my great Olympic Hump-Off with that nymphomaniac,
After which I spent the next six weeks in traction on my back,
While whe walked off smilin' -- leavin' me the winner.

Now, as I kick in your family jewels, you'll notice my left leg drags,
And this jacket's kinda padded up where my right shoulder sags,
And there's a special part of me I keep in this paper bag,
And I'll show it to you -- if you want to see all of the winner.

So I never play the violin and I seldom dance or ski.
They say there never was a hero brave and strong as me.
But when you're this year's hero, son, you're next year's used-to-be.
And that's the facts of life -- when you're a winner.

Now, you remind me a lot of my younger days with your knuckles clenchin' white.
But, boy, I'm gonna sit right here and sip this beer all night.
And if there's somethin' you gotta prove by winnin' some silly fight,
Well, OK, I quit, I lose, son, you're the winner.

So I stumbled from that barroom not so tall and not so proud,
And behind me I could hear the hoots of laughter from the crowd.
But my eyes still see and my nose still works and my teeth are still in my mouth.
And y'know...I guess that makes me...a winner.


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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   Go Back, Learn To Use That Thing   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 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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