You Can't Pick Cotton

(album: Homesick Heroes - 1988)

I will never forget the day the law come take my grandpa away
The family lived on sugar hill making, making liquor in a moonshine still
Uncle Bill said, Grandpa you better run, High Sheriff is coming with a posse and a gun
Grandpa didn't want to go to jail; he took off a running down the Cumberland Trail

They said, Hey Hey, I better get my britches on the high sheriffs come and to take me to town
Hey Hey, I better get a move on, I better get a move on down

[CHORUS:]
You can't pick cotton if the fields ain't white
You can't stay sober on a Saturday night
You can't go courting if you get too old
You can't go driving if the wheels won't roll
Greenback money make the wheels go round
I'm gonna play my fiddle'til the sun goes down

Two weeks later he was back in town in a Cadillac car with the top rolled down
Girls in the front, girls in the back, whiskey in the jug, and money in the sack
Sitting in the backseat, jumping like a frog, crazy like a possum putting on a dog
New suit new hat twinkle in his eye, playing on his fiddle for the people passing by

He said, Hey Hey, give me a drink of water the sun is getting hotter and I think I'm getting dry
Hey Hey, doing what I ought-ta now, telling you the reason why…

[CHORUS]

Do you remember a long time ago?
Devil worked a man named Cotton-Eyed Joe
Devil worked a man named Cotton-Eyed Joe
Down in the __ fields down below
Everybody talking about Cotton-Eyed Joe
Everybody talking about Cotton-Eyed Joe

[CHORUS]