My Old Man

(album: Walker's Collectibles - 1974)

My old man had a rounder soul
He'd hear an ol' freight train and he'd have to go
Said he'd been blessed with a gypsy bone
And that's the reason I guess that he'd been cursed to roam
Came to town back before the war

Didn't even know what it was he was looking for
He carried a tattered bag for his violin
Full of lots of songs of the places he had been
He talked real easy and he smiled and waved
He could pass along to you when his fiddle played

Making people drop their cares and woes
And hum out loud the tunes that his fiddle bowed
Till the people there began to join that sound
And ev'ryone in town was laughin',' singin',' dancing 'round
Like the Fiddler's tunes we all there heard that night
Like some dream that says all the world is right

The Fiddler's eye caught a beauty there
She had that rolling flowing golden 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 that Fiddler's tune

He played until she was the last to go
The he stopped and packed his case, said he'd take her home
In all the nights that passed a child was born
In all the years that passed, love would keep them warm
And all their lives they'd share that dream come true
And all because she danced so well his fiddler tune

The train next morning blew a lonesome sound
As if she sang the blues of what she took from town
And all that I recall that was said when I was young
There's no one else could really sing those songs he sung