CALIFORNIA COTTONFIELDS
My drifting memory goes back to the spring of '43
When I was just a child in mama's arms
My daddy plowed the ground and prayed that some
day we could leave
This rundown mortgaged Oklahoma farm
And then one night I heard my daddy saying to my mom
That he finally saved enough to go
California was his dream a paradise for he had seen
Lots of pretty girls in magazines that told him so
Cali--fornia cotton fields
where labor camps were filled with varied men with broken dreams
Cali--fornia cotton fields,
As close to wealth as daddy ever came
Almost everything we had was sold or left behind
>From my daddy's plow to the fruit that mama canned
Some folks came to say farewell and see the things we had to sell
Some just came to shake my daddy's hand
Well the model A was loaded down and California bound
And the change of luck was just four days away
But the only change I that I remember seeing for my daddy
Was when his dark hair tuned to silver gray
California cotton fields...