The Recorded version is in E, but I find it's much easier to play in G.
Bar the Cm, all the other chords are standard.
G
It was just after dark when the truck started down
C Cm G
the hill that leads into Scranton Pennsylvania.
F Em Dm G
Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
F Em Dm G
Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
G
He was a young driver,
C Cm
just out on his second job.
G
And he was carrying the next day's pasty fruits
C Cm
for everyone in that coal-scarred city
G
where children play without despair
C Cm G
in backyard slag-piles and folks manage to eat each day
F Em.....
about thirty thousand .....
G
He passed a sign that he should have seen,
C Cm G
saying "shift to low gear, a fifty dollar fine my friend."
C Cm
He was thinking perhaps about the warm-breathed woman
G
who was waiting at the journey's end.
C Cm
He started down the two mile drop,
G D
the curving road that wound from the top of the hill.
D D G
He was pushing on through the shortening miles that ran down to the depot.
G
Just a few more miles to go,
C Cm G
then he'd go home and have her ease his long, cramped day away.
F....
and the smell of thirty
[ Tab from: https://www.guitartabs.cc/tabs/h/harry_chapin/30000_pounds_of_bananas_crd_ver_2.html ]
G C Cm G
He was picking speed as the city spread its twinkling lights below him.
G C
But he paid no heed as the shivering thoughts of the nights
Cm G
delights went through him.
Dm (strum) Dm(strum)
His foot nudged the brakes to slow him down.
G
But the pedal floored easy without a sound.
D
He said "Christ!"
G
It was funny how he had named the only man who could save him now.
C Cm
He was trapped inside a dead-end hellslide,
G
riding on his fear-hunched back
C Cm G
was every one of those yellow green
F
I'm telling you thirty....
G C Cm
He barely made the sweeping curve that led into the steepest grade.
G C Cm
And he missed the thankful passing bus at ninety miles an hour.
G D
And he said "God, make it a dream!"
F C G
as he rode his last ride down.
G D
And he said "God, make it a dream!"
F C G
as he rode his last ride down.
Cm(strum)
And he sideswiped nineteen neat parked cars,
G(strum)
clipped off thirteen telephone poles,
Cm(strum)
hit two houses, bruised eight trees,
G(strum)
and Blue-Crossed seven people.
Dm
it was then he lost his head,
G
not to mention an arm or two before he stopped.
Dm
And he smeared for four hundred yards
G
along the hill that leads into Scranton, Pennsylvania.
F
All those thirty.....
G
You know the man who told me about it on the bus,
C Cm
as it went up the hill out of Scranton, Pennsylvania,
Dm
he shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head,
G
and he said (and this is exactly what he said)
N.C.
"Boy that sure must've been something.
Just imagine thirty thousand pounds of bananas.
F Em Dm G
Yes, there were thirty thousand pounds of mashed bananas.
From Greatest Stories Live: Ending #1
G
Yes, we have no bananas,
C D
We have no bananas today
(Spoken: And if that wasn't enough)
G
Yes, we have no bananas,
C D
Bananas in Scranton, P A
Ending #2:
G C Cm
A woman walks into her room where her child lies sleeping,
G
and when she sees his eyes are closed,
C Cm G
she sits there, silently weeping,
Dm G
and though she lives in Scranton, Pennsylvania
Dm G
She never ever eats ... Bananas
F Em Dm G
Not one of thirty thousand pounds .... of bananas
Tabbed by Archibald Edmund Binns
Pueblano '09
