We Don't Grow Tobacco

(album: Carry Me Back - 2012)

Throw a capo on the third fret and this should sound about right.
Hardest work that ever I done, bent beneath that burning sun
Hauling that tobacco 'round to cure
How we chopped that wicked weed 'till our hands and fingers bleed
Working like a mule, maybe more

We been farming on this land
Since eighteen hundred ten
Through flood and drought
And pestilence and war
Now I sure am sad to say

That I've lived to see this day
When we don't grow tobacco
'Round here no more

We don't grow, we don't grow
Oh, it's still the only work we'll ever know
We don't grow, we don't grow
We don't grow tobacco 'round here no more

Granpa told me, this I know, change is coming, won't be slow
Knocking just like thunder at the door

Fallow fields are all around, empty barns just falling down
Iron weeds coming up through the floor

Once we growed it by the pound
Now the kids all move to town
And all that's left are elderly and poor
Now I sure and sad to say

That I've lived to see the day
When we don't grow tobacco
'Round here no more

We don't grow, we don't grow
Oh, it's still the only work we'll ever know
We don't grow, we don't grow
We don't grow tobacco 'round here no more

Yes, I sure am sad to say this way of life has gone away
Now that we don't grow tobacco 'round here no more
We don't grow tobacco 'round here no more