The Day The Saw Mill Closed Down

(album: A Bird Named Yesterday - 1967)

Her house on the corner of Cedar and Elm
Still stands in our town
But it's been empty since she moved away
The day that the saw mill closed down.

We'd sit on her porch almost every night
I remember how happy we were
We'd grow up and marry I'd work at the mill
To make a living for her.

Her father worked at the mill
Like most of the others in town
I lost my girl when he lost his job
The day that the saw mill closed down.

She moved from the corner of Cedar and Elm
And I never saw her again
But I can still hear her mother's soft voice
Saying honey it's time to come in.

No longer do mill hands live here
The giant saws don't make a sound
No longer does my love live here
Not since the saw mill closed down.

She left when the saw mill closed down...

[Narrative by Bobby spoken after song:]
(Where the gentle summer breezes blow.)
I've lived in Kansas City all of my life and I guess you could say I've done
pretty well 'cause we lived in a modern well insulated house in the suburbs
With storm windows central heat and air-conditioning
We got plenty of privacy the neighbors don't bother us and we don't bother
them but you take that air-conditioner for instance
That's a wonderful invention and I wouldn't take anything for it
But you know sometimes I get to thinking
I'd just like to open all of the windows and holler at somebody
Or feel the honest-to-goodness breeze again or even hear a train whistle
Or hear those two girls in Newport Arkansas singing You Are My Sunshine
When I was a kid I used to visit my grandparents every summer in Newport
And Newport's a little town down on the White River
And they lived in the sorta yellow frame house down close to the levee
And they got awful hot there during the day
But at night the breeze was blowing from the river and it sure felt good
I slept right next to the window and on some nights when the air was just
right I could hear sounds drifting in from all parts of that little town
Like the train pulling into the depot ever night and always the chorus of
crickets but crickets that's a sound you don't even hear after you get used
to it but it's pleasant sorta like background music
But the sound I remember most was You Are My Sunshine
I don't know exactly where it came from but I think it must have been the
house Beyond the vacant lot on the other corner
But almost every night I would hear those two girl singing
And they sure could sing pretty
They sang other songs but that's the one I remember most
And I've often wondered who they were and whatever happened to 'em
I think they must have been very pretty and had black hair.