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Come Along and Ride This Train / Mississippi Delta Land / Detroit City / Uncloudy Day / No Setting Sun / Mississippi Delta Land
Johnny Cash
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Come along and ride this train
Come along and ride this train
'Cross the mountains, prairies, reservations
Rivers, levees, plains
Come along and ride this train
Ride this train...
Ride this train with me to the Mississippi River Delta Land
A wide stretch of rich black earth, that-
Spreads out along the banks of the Mississippi river
Startin' somewhere up around Southern Illinois
Runnin' right on down to the Gulf Of Mexico
This is the land of King Cotton, this black rich land
And to the people who live here, cotton is their bread 'n' butter
And though the land is rich, to many, life is pretty hard
You see that old shack overthere?
That's the home of a shear cropper
His work is back breaking
He could spend 30 years of his life, into that kinda land
And then wind up with that kind of a place
Only to just up and leave with just the clothes on his back, a prayer in his heart
And a pickup truck half-full of used furniture
Mississippi Delta Land, you robbed me of my youth
And all you gave back, was a one room shack and a mind that learned the truth
There ain't no future for the man, that works, but never owns the land
And now these ol' hard workin' hands are headin' for Chicago in the mornin'
Mississippi Delta Land, your riches ain't for me
These kids of mine and me's gonna find a better place to be
Thank you
At one time, most of the cotton was grown by small cotton farmers
Like my people- 20 acres of it
These were people that lived on the land- and by the land
Because it's in the nature of a man to always look away to grass that seems- just a little bit greener
Many of the sons and the daughters of these small cotton farmers
Headed for the big cities and the car factories in the North
Like I did when- when I was 18 years old
Where they'd heard tell of good money- and better times
Where they hoped they could- leave- leave behind the hardships
The hard times of the small Delta farm
Last night, I went to sleep in Detroit City
And I dreamed about those cotton fields and home
I dreamed about my mother, their old poppa, sister and brother
I dreamed about that girl, who's been waiting for so long
I wanna go home, I wanna go home
Oh, how I wanna go home
Home folks, think I'm big in Detroit City
From the letters that I write, they think I'm fine
But by day I make the cars and by night I make the bars
If only they could read between the lines
'Cause you know, I rode a freight train North to Detroit City
And after all these years I find, I was just wastin' my time
So I think I'll just take my foolish pride
Put it on a South bound freight and ride
I'm goin' back to loved ones, I left waiting far behind
I wanna go home, I wanna go home
Oh, how I wanna go home
Down in Dyess, Arkansas and that part of the Delta Land where I grew up, I did my earliest singin'
And I learned my first songs, while pickin' or choppin' cotton- on the cotton patch
Seemed somebody was always singin' while they worked
To help make the day go a little bit faster
I c'n 'member- my sister Louise out in the cotton field
She would keep us all cheared up by singin' gospell songs and- the hits of the days
And bein' a few years older than I was, she w'd teach me songs
She'd say
I'm gonna sing you this song three times and then, see if you were listening
You sing it back to me
Sometimes she'd be way down the row, pickin' ahead of me
And while she was waitin' for me to catch up, I could hear her singin'
And she w'd sing-
And lord, she w'd sing-
And wouldn't she sing...
Oh, I can almost hear her singin' now
And I'd pick a little bit harder, catch up with her
She w'd sing to me some more
And she w'd sing-
And just about every afternoon, as the sun was sinkin' real low
When we were leavin' the cotton fields
All of us- would usually leave the field singin' this song
Life's evening sun (Life's evening sun)
Is sinkin' low (Is sinkin' low)
A few more days (A few more days)
And I must go (And I must go)
To meet the deeds
That I have done
Where there will be (Where there will be)
No setting sun (No setting sun)
Yeah, the life of the small Delta farmer- will soon be gone forever
But though the song may be gone from the cotton fields
The memory of those good people- that worked there, will live on as long as I live
And as long as the cotton grows tall, along the banks of that old Mississippi River
Mississippi Delta Land, my dad and his dad too
They ploughed your soil and for all that toil, they never owned an inch of you
Mississippi Delta Land, you robbed me of my youth
And all you gave back, was a one room shack and a mind that learned the truth
Mississippi Delta ...
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