If this old fiddle could talk, if this old fiddle could sing   Man if this old fiddle could only talk it could tell   You some wondrous things, talk to me fiddle      Tell me about when you came across the sea   In the hands of a Jewish immigrant who was   Longing to be free, you were part of his life   For forty years through times both lean and fat   And he raised his family and lived out his days   In a New York tenement flat, talk to me fiddle      Talk to me fiddle, tell me about how that Cajun   Fiddlin' man found you in a pawn shop and took   You back down to the Louisiana bayou land   You knew his wife and you knew his kids   And you watched his family grow and you   Played your heart out Cajun style at the Louisiana Fais Do Do      Then a big shot Yankee gambler found you   Down in New Orleans and took you up the   River on the Mississippi Queen, then there   Came the day that you were all that he had left to lose   And a black man won you in a poker game   And taught you how to play the blues, cry for me fiddle      Then a young man from the mountains of Kentucky came along   And he bought you for a dollar took you all away back home   He gave you to his grandpa on his golden wedding day   And people had come from miles around just to hear the old man play   Dance for them fiddle      Then a hobo from Biloxi found you living in the rain   And he got himself a free ride on a west-bound cattle train   You got off in Texas where they play that western swing   Where the people do the two-step and old Bob Wills was the king   Swing for me fiddle      If this old fiddle could talk if this old fiddle could sing   Man if this old fiddle could only talk it could tell   You some wondrous things, you've been bouncing around America   From sea to shining sea now your traveling days are over fiddle   'Cause you belong to me