The Migrant Mother

(album: Palimpsest - 2020)

"My sisters and brothers they hated so bad
To see me go west like someone gone mad
To leave all my loved ones and kiss them goodbye
Just hoping I'd see them in the sweet by-and-by"

California promised heaven
(All the leaves are brown)
A heaven we could not deny
(And the sky is grey)
But the dust we're running from still stalks us in the night
And all we've found's a bitter lie

With our lives on our backs, beat a path in the earth
Just hoping that we'd find blue skies and work
The farmlands and sawmills worked fine for a time
But with the father's death came our decline

He that would the daughter win
Must with the mother first begin
Diligence is the mother of good luck
Diligence is the mother of good luck

They don't need to know my name
Hide their faces, spare my children the shame
They don't need to know my name
Hide their faces, spare my children the shame

Where is the children's father?
Sacrificed on or left to the altar
Where is the life I was promised?
Best left unasked and best left unwanted
How did they end up here?
What are they going to do?
How did they end up here?
What are they going to do?

He that would the daughter win
Must with the mother first begin
Diligence is the mother of good luck
Diligence is the mother of good luck
Good luck, good luck, good luck
Good luck, good luck, good luck

California promised heaven
(All the leaves are brown)
A heaven we could not deny
(And the sky is grey)
But I'll deny most anything
Rags and riches, gods and kings
Just need to feel the wheels underneath me