I list this as a topical song, though I steered clear of setting it in a specific time. I wrote it in 2017, after a year during which I was unable to write lyrics at all. When I finally found words for why I’d been so silent, the first were “too much to cry about to cry.”
Too much to cry about to cry
too many reasons you know just as well as I
best to turn around and face into the wind
take your stand against the sky
too much to cry about to cry
Too much to try for not to try
too many lies we mustn’t leave to live as lies
best to turn and shine your light right in their eyes
too much to try for not to try
Sometimes I feel I’m halfway home
sometimes it seems I’ve twice as far to go
but lately I see written in your eyes
too much to cry about to cry
Too many want to lead us back to darker times
best to turn and shine your light right in their eyes
too much to cry about to cry
Since retiring from teaching, I’ve been doing as much tutoring as I can. The extra money isn’t as important to me as is staying in touch with young people. One of the students I’ve been working with wants to change the world. He deplores violence, and he’s hopeful he can do something to curtail it. I think he can. I pray he does.
Devil had the diamonds
liked to hold the cards
and deal out every hand
carved his mark
on everyone he damned
Drew you to the table
gave you whiskey
and he whispered in your ear
anything you damned well
want to hear
And he promised you a heaven
and he promised you a virgin
on a golden bed
And he wrapped his cloak around you
and he tied it with a cord
of black widow thread
Devil took the children
and he cut his own initials
in their skin
played with them like soldiers
made of tin
Told the honest people
Either play my game,
or I get twice as rough
Dared the world
to call him on his bluff
And he promised you a heaven
and he promised you could have it
long before you’re dead
And he dangled down a golden watch
and he swung it by a strand
of black widow thread
Devil dealt in diamonds
liked to hold the cards
and he beat you every hand
carved his mark
and said, the world be damned
You bought up the farmland, you bought up the mines
You needed some strong hands, I stood in your lines
I had no hopes for tomorrow, you bought them all up yesterday
When I asked, “What are my wages, and what are my hours,
and what must I do for my pay?”
you said, “You’ll do anything I say.”
I worked in your factories, I worked in your mills
I dug up your gold for you, I leveled your hills
I made you a rich man, but you only gave me a dollar a day
And now I need something I made with my own hands
but you get to set me the price I must pay
and I must pay anything you say
I cared for your children, I kept them from cold
And after I’d raised them, you gave them your gold
I learned them their letters, but you only gave me a dollar a day
And when they grew older they thought themselves better
and told me, “Old man, get out of our way
And you will do anything we say.”
But tonight when you’re dreaming, you will dream of me
I’m outside your window, I’m on your TV
When all of your riches and power and silver
won’t buy you your way, when all of my brothers and sisters
refuse just to listen, you’ll beg us, but we’ll turn away
No one will hear anything you say
anything you say
I waken with the sun
and I hear that river run
muddy water rushes through my veins
and each night in my sleep
sings a river wide and deep
laughing at its shackles
and jingling its chains
Ever since I was a child
and they’d catch me running wild
my daddy told me watch out where you play
That old river ain’t your friend
and he’d tell me once again
about the bodies he’d found floating
and them bones he’d hauled away
And there’s nothing in its soul
and there’s a hole down in its heart
and there’s nothing, I’ve been told,
that river cannot tear apart
No walls can hold it in
river’s got to win
when that black water starts to rise
and it gets a’hungerin
At the dawning of each day
I fold my hands and pray
River, spare us over one more year
My baby and my wife, we’re just begging for our life
just one more summer’s wages
and I’ll take us away from here
But every single time I get to hold a dime
seems that river’s got to take its share
Like a hungry beggar man it comes holding out its hand
if you can’t pay him his dollar
he’ll take it out in fear
Sitting by the muddy riverside
watching an old mud slider slide
watching an old mud slider slide on by
He doesn’t give a hoot for what the people say
he doesn’t have to stoop to draw his pay
like I do every day
You put in your time in this lumberyard
pretty soon your heart and your talk get hard
pretty soon your insides turn to knotty pine
You kick and you scratch like a river rat
I don’t want to see you come to that
I want to keep you something fine
Ch.
Marianne, you’re too good for all of that
Marianne, you’re too good for all of that
and when I can I’ll get something someday
take you so far away
you’ll have to face front to look back
you’re too good for all of that
They tell me that the poor man’s rich, indeed
tell me that he’s got all that he needs
he’s got the rich man beat in peace of mind
Then they go and talk about the price of greed
it’s just a sickness they must feed
it’s just a crying, hungry child
I know a little something about discontent
I’ve had to choose between food and rent
when all I’ve had to swallow is my human pride
I wonder, if the rich man suffers so
why he doesn’t just let go
when he hears my children cry
By the river Rapidan
where the long tall willows stand
last song my daddy ever sung
he sung it with the old brown lung
Every day at quitting time
he’d brush the dust off
quit the line
Dust to dust was sure to be his fate
with all that dust my old man ate
And them who say they don’t believe it
tell them that we live and breathe it
All who ever work the cloth
get that old mill fever cough
spitting blood at the starting of each day
still a man must earn his pay
Company says it’s all a dream
what my very eyes have seen
I’ve never heard of anyone but a miller
with brown lung
And them who say they don’t believe it
tell them that we live and breathe it
Had a dream the other night
just beyond that factory light
I saw my daddy walking from his death
stopping twice a block for breath
I’d love to hear a string band or Bluegrass group do a version of this song.
Took off running when I seen them agents coming
struck the woods where my daddy ran the still
In the Franklin County hollers you can’t seem to turn a dollar
crops don’t pay, but the whiskey always will
Now my people ain’t for begging
and we don’t like pulling wages
we ask nothing but to work and pay our way
Held our own until the turning of the century,
tractors come, now we can’t make a go
How the hell can any poor man’s four-hand family undersell
or even make a show?
So my daddy asked the preacher,
asked him what the Bible teaches,
he said, “Me, I’m making barrels every day;
make your whiskey, son, and pray.”
Sheriff Hodges and his deputy, Jeff Richards
take a cut on every drop we make
they’re just setting, while we do all the sweating
gotta pay, or they’ll give us all away
Feed the double-dealing devil
keep the crooked off the level
just to live and breathe and see another day
make your whiskey, Pa, but pay
A couple fellas with the banjos and their fiddles
stopped by here, so we took them up Shooting Creek
Gave them moonshine and they sung and had a fine time
made us glad, kept us going all last week
And the preacher stopped by, grinning
and he said, “No, you ain’t sinning
like the law, the Lord will look the other way
if you pray, and if you pay.”
Oh, the dreams we used to dream
back when we were in our teens
and we sang our songs of peace
and we dreamed the wars would cease
Where did we go so wrong
when did we learn to grieve
why did we bother to believe?
So many different bibles
mystic numbers, sacred birds
everybody says the sky
wrote down all of those holy words
so many different voices
speaking in secret tongues
so many consecrated guns
Everybody wants so badly
just to stand on solid rock
everybody yearns so sadly
just to join some chosen flock
all of these webs that catch us
all of a golden weave
maybe it’s best not to believe
Oh, the dreams we used to dream
back when we were in our teens
and we sang our songs of peace
and we dreamed the wars would cease
So hard to wake from dreaming
hard to roll up your sleeve
Harder to love than to believe