Working Girl Blues (13 page)

I wrote this song in 1981 after reading a true story in the newspaper about this grower down in Florida who hired a lot of migrant workers to work for him picking fruit. He also let children work long hours in the hot sun with very little pay. The article mentioned a little eleven-year-old boy named Lenaldo. Lenaldo got up at dawn and worked all day in the fields picking strawberries. The grower paid him five cents a box, but strawberries retailed for about eight times that much, and all the money went to the grower. The migrants barely had enough to eat or to pay their rent. That's why the kid had to work. The parents needed the extra money to pay bills. Lenaldo never had leisure time like other kids to run and play. His days spent in the fields were long and exhausting. They got home at dusk, and the mother who had also been in the fields cooked supper. After that was over, it was time to get ready for bed and the next day. They had to be up and ready to go by dawn. After I read that article, it stayed on my mind until I finally had to write a song about it.

Little Lenaldo he's only eleven years old

He gets up at dawn to work in the fields all day

For a mean boss man, who'll abuse and never think twice

He's known for cheap labor and a heart that's cold as ice

Poor little Lenaldo, poor little ragged child

Poor little child so young and so mild

Oh what's to become of him

Little Lenaldo no time ever to run and play

Work is barely finished 'till it's time to start another day

Grey-haired little children growing old before their time

Their dreams lay dying they just rotted on the vine

How can it be we stand and just look away

Pretend not to see this man destroy a little child

In the fields of plenty starving out his time

But for chance or blessings

He could be a child of yours or mine

Poor little Lenaldo, poor little ragged child

Poor little child so young and so mild

Oh what's to become of him

Underpaid, underfed, he's worked like a dog everyday

Poor little child so young and so mild

Oh what's to become of him?

 

Tomorrow's Already Lost

This song was written in the late '60s for a sister, a very sweet and dear soul, who however always seemed to choose the wrong people to have a lasting relationship with. There always seemed to be a “loser” waiting in the wings to take advantage of her. Unfortunately, she never learned to tell them apart.

Chorus:

Down where the beer and wine and the liquor flows

Down along sorrow streets where all her misery grows

Searching for a home I know she'll never find

Searching for a little love the kind she's never had

Her fears she hides within her eyes, the torment in her soul

The loved ones who've forgotten her don't need her no more

The demons from some hellish world, who speak to her so low

And bid her come into their world and be lost forever more

Her loved ones turn from her in shame the scorn deep in their eyes

They'll never claim part of the blame, they don't want her around

So she turns to a stranger for love at any cost

She's waiting for tomorrow, but tomorrow's already lost

They'll come for her tomorrow, they'll lock her up awhile

Until she can stand alone and learn again to smile

And then she'll start all over, she'll walk the streets downtown

Where plenty of men are just waiting to help and drag her down

Repeat Chorus

 

I Can't Find Your Love Anymore

I had been writing on this song for quite a while before I finished it in 1996. I'd leave it and come back to it, but couldn't seem to get anywhere with it until I started playing around with a new melody and chord pattern. Then I got more excited about finishing it. Since I'm a traditional singer, I'm basically a G/C/D person. So this new chord structure was a little different, and it took a while to get used to. Once I got over the fact that I wasn't being
too unfaithful to the “old school,” the old way of doing things, I started to like the new tune much better, and I realized I'd been getting in my own way. It also freed me up to be able to write the third verse, which is probably my favorite in the whole song.

My heart's been pounded with grief and sorrow

My tears have lingered too long

Once bedded in clover now the weeds have took over

And I can't find your love anymore

Chorus:

For love comes early or love comes too late

Or love don't come at all

Come back to me when love runs truer

And your heart melts like the snow

I followed your dreams down long lonesome highways

To places where love had no home

But sorrow soon found us wrapped heartache around us

All our fields were overgrown

Somewhere out on some wild brushy mountain

There are wild flowers the eye has never seen

Like places in my heart where you never dared to wander

And love has waited long to be set free

Repeat Chorus

 

Hills of Home

A lot of the mines have shut down around where I came from in West Virginia, and so many other businesses were forced to close as well. A lot of boomtowns shrunk in size and discontinued some city services like local
transportation. Small coal camps became ghost towns compared to their heyday. When I was younger, I could take the train or bus right to my home-town. Now when I take the train, I have to get off twenty-nine miles from my destination, and it only runs three days a week. Strangely enough, those of us who were born and raised there still call it home and try to visit as often as we can—which reminds me of a time back in the seventies when I was playing a festival in West Virginia. After it was over, a friend and I decided that we would attend this rally put on by the coal miners while they were on strike. It was way out on some little country road in the middle of nowhere near the mines. I was working a day job up north in the city and playing music on the weekends, so I had not been home to West Virginia in a longtime. As we drove deeper and deeper into the mountains, down tree-lined roads along the river's edge, a great wave of nostalgia swept over me. I was emotionally moved by being here in this mountainous terrain. It felt good to be surrounded by mountains so close I could almost reach out and touch them, comforting me with a sense of place and belonging, which I had not felt in a longtime, connecting me to my native roots. No longer was I confused about where home was—I
was
home!

There ain't much that's left there that ain't all run-down

Gone are the echoes of old familiar sounds

Of families that's scattered, parted and gone

And left a lot of good things to wither away back home

Chorus:

Can't you feel those hills around you

Can't you feel a touch of home

And don't you wish you'd never gone

There are some things memories can't bring home

Hills of home hills of home, families scattered off and gone

These old hills that've been passed by

Well they've seen a lot of leaving in their time

Old familiar dirt roads winds through the piney glades

Where all the longings of childhood dreams where made

The flowery paths the mossy mounds where I could run and play

Never a care to cross my mind all the livelong day

Repeat Chorus

 

Old River

This song was written in the late sixties and early seventies. I was heavy into the old-time and bluegrass sound, like the Stanleys, Monroe, Don Reno and Red Smiley, the Louvin Brothers, Osborne Brothers, Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, Jim and Jesse—the list goes on. I knew most of the songs of that period by heart. I think all of that strong material from the fifties, sixties, and seventies spurred me on to start writing my own songs. Up until that time I had written only a few songs. I became more and more adventurous in the seventies and eighties and more prolific as a songwriter. This song came out of that period. I recorded it on a CD that came out in 1998 called “Heart of a Singer.” The song was used on a movie soundtrack,
Evidence of Blood,
on cable TV a couple of years ago. I have never seen the movie.

Old river you're wide you're deep and cold

You make a lonesome old sound as onward you roll

'Neath the crest of your waves I know I could sleep

And forget all this sorrow he's brought to me

Many's the time and many's the night

We sat here talking making things right

You heard every vow you heard all our plans

Old river I know that you understand

The dawn is breaking on sea and on land

As I write my farewell upon your sand

Your waves will embrace me my body you'll claim

Old river old river you're calling my name

Oh the ways of love is oft times bold

Like the hearts of lovers when love turns cold

River old river your depths dark and deep

In a watery grave forever I'll sleep

 

Will Jesus Wash the Bloodstains from Your Hands?