My Oklahoma Home

(album: We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions - 2006)

When they opened up the strip I was young and full of zip
I wanted a place to call my own
And so I made the race, and staked me out a place
And settled down along the Cimarron

It blowed away, it blowed away
My Oklahoma home, it blowed away
It looked so green and fair when I built my shanty there
But my Oklahoma home, it blowed away

I planted wheat and oats, got some chickens and some shoats
Aimed to have some ham and eggs to feed my face
Got a mule to pull the plow, got an old red muley cow
And got a fancy mortgage on the place

It blowed away, it blowed away
All the crops I planted blowed away
You can't grow any grain if there isn't any rain
All except the mortgage blowed away

It blowed away my rooster and it blowed away my hens
The pigs and cattle went astray
All the crops that I sowed went a-fogging down the road
My Oklahoma farm, it blowed away

It blowed away, it blowed away
Everything I owned blowed away
I hollered and I cussed when my land went up in dust
When my Oklahoma farm, it blowed away

It looked so green and fair, when I built my shanty there
I figured I was all set for life
I put on my Sunday best with my fancy scalloped vest
And went to town and picked me out a wife

She blowed away, she blowed away
My Oklahoma woman blowed away
Just as I bent and kissed her, she was picked up by a twister
My Oklahoma woman blowed away

Then I was left alone a-listening to the moan
Of the wind around the corners of my shack
So, I took off down the road when the south wind blowed
A-traveling with the wind at my back

I blowed away, I blowed away
Chasing a dust cloud up ahead
Once it looked so green and fair, now it's up there in the air
My Oklahoma farm is overhead

Now I'm always close to home no matter where I roam
For Oklahoma dust is everywhere
Makes no difference where I'm walking
I can hear my chickens squawking
I can hear my wife a-talking in the air

It blowed away, it blowed away
My Oklahoma home blowed away
But my home is always near; it's in the atmosphere
My Oklahoma home that blowed away

I'm a roaming Oklahoman, but I'm always close to home
And I'll never get homesick 'til I die
No matter where I'm found, my home is all around
My Oklahoma home is in the sky

It blowed away, it blowed away
My farm down upon the Cimarron
But all around the world, wherever dust is whirled
Some is from my Oklahoma home

It blowed away, it blowed away
My Oklahoma home blowed away
Oh, it's up there in the sky in that dust cloud rolling by
My Oklahoma home is in the sky