My Old Man

(album: Lonesome Questions - 1995)

My old man, he had a rambling soul
He'd hear an old freight train and he had to roll
Said he'd been blessed with a gypsy bone
That's the reason I guess he'd been cursed to roam

He came to town back before the war
He didn't even know that it was he was looking for
He carried a tattered bag for his violin
It was full of songs from places he had been

He talked real easy, had a smiling way
He could pass it on to you while his fiddle played
He was making people drop their cares and woes
They'd hum out loud to tunes that his fiddled bowed

The people there began to join that sound
Everyone in town was laughing, singing, dancing round
Like the fiddler's tunes were all they heard that night
As if some dream had said all in the world was right

His eye caught a dancing lady there
She had that rolling, flowing, golden, dangling kind of hair
He played for her as if she danced alone
He played his favorite songs, the ones he called his own

She alone was dancing in the room
The only thing left moving to his fiddler's tune
He played until she was the last to go
He stopped and packed his case and said he'd take her home

In all the nights that passed, a child was born
And all the years that passed, love would keep them warm
All their lives they've shared a dream come true
All because she danced so well to his fiddler's tune

But the train next morning, she blew a lonesome sound
As if she sang the blues of what she took from town
All that I recall he said when I was young
Was no one else could really sing the songs he sung