Johnny Cash Album: The Johnny Cash Show Track: Medley: Mississippi Delta Land, Detroit City, Uncloudy Day, No Setting Sun, Mississippi Delta Land
Medley: Mississippi Delta Land, Detroit City, Uncloudy Day, No Setting Sun, Mississippi Delta Land Lyrics
(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 And running right on down to the Gulf of Mexico This is the land of king cotton this black rich land And of the people who live here cotton is their bread and butter And though the land is rich to many life is pretty hard You see that old shack over there that's the home of a sharecropper His work is back breaking he could spend thirty years of his life into that kind of land And wind up with that kind of place Only to just up and leave with just the clothes on his back a prayer in his heart And a pick up truck half full of used furniture)
Mississippi Delta land you robbed me off 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 old hard working hands are headin' for Chicago in the morning 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 in the delta was grown by small cotton farmers Like my people twenty 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 I was eighteen 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 cottonfields and home I dreamed about my mother dear old papa 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
Homefolks 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 by night I make the bars If only they could read between the lines
Cause you know I rode the freight train north to Detroit City And after all these years I find I was just wastin' my time So I just think I'll take my foolish pride And put on a Southbound freight and ride And go on back to the 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 singing and I learned my first songs While picking or chopping cotton out in a cotton patch Seems somebody was always singing while they worked To help make the day go a little bit faster I can remember my sister Louisie out in the cottonfields She would keep us all cheered up by singing gospel songs and the hits of the days And being a few years older than I was she'd teach me songs she'd say I'm going to sing you this song three times And then see if you're listening you sing it back to me Sometimes she'd be way down the row picking ahead of me And while she was waiting for me to catch up I could hear her singing)
(Oh the land of a cloudless day) and she'd sing and Lord she'd sing (Oh the land of an uncloudy sky) And wouldn't she sing oh I can almost hear her singin' now (Oh they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise) And I'd pick a little bit harder catch up with her She'd sing to me some more and she'd sing (Oh they tell me of an uncloudy day)
(And just about every afternoon as the sun was sinking real low When we were leaving the cottonfields All of us would usually leave the fields singing this song)
Life's evening sun is sinking low a few more days and I must go To meet the deeds that I have done where there will be 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 cottonfields The mem'ry of those good people that worker 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've 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 land
